


Second Act

by fadeverb



Series: Kai and Mannie [4]
Category: In Nomine
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 06:26:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 35,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/923071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadeverb/pseuds/fadeverb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every deliberate choice has consequences. Kai discovers that the consequences don't always fall on the one who made the choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Everything Is Fine For Now

I'm still surprised that what takes the most adjustment is the auditory shift.

Hell is full of noise, except for where an effort has been made to keep things quiet. Demons and damned souls and proto-demons alike create a babble of anger and pain and pleading. Where machinery works, gears grind and clash. When you enter a silent area, the silence is designed to make you nervous, to wonder who's keeping things quiet.

Heaven, in comparison, is easy on the ears.

I leave the door to my office open because there's no harm in doing so. In the hallway two relievers are chattering, quietly because they don't want to bother anyone, but with enough enthusiasm that I can make out bits of the conversation. One is working as lab assistant on a project, and the other wants to know if there's an opening. Further down the hall a clatter of wooden chimes announces that the Seraph whose name I haven't caught yet has opened the door to her office.

I need to see about getting the latest iteration of music-producing device up here, and find a copy of Ride of the Valkyries. I used to play it to drive a Balseraph coworker up the wall; after a few months of that stimulus/result combination, hearing it puts me into a planning mood.

The analysis done, I snap my notebook shut. Computers may be useful in their own way, but there's nothing like paper for real work. The two relievers spring up as I step outside, and the one who was asking about finding a position flutters over hopefully.

I may not be the best for appreciating creatures on an aesthetic level, but relievers are far more pleasant to look at than any of the demonlings I used as lab assistants back in Hell. "Need help with a delivery?" it asks, sparks running along the edges of its butterfly wings.

"If you wouldn't mind." I know civility from a dozen different Roles, a way to fit in better, get what you want out of people, give them what they Need. Here's it's just...civility. A default position. I hand it the report I've written, the handwriting embarrassingly clumsy as I'm still learning the symbols for the language of Heaven. "If you'd take these to Gariel for me--"

"Right on it!"

"Ofanite in training?" I ask, and the other reliever nods. I've finished the last report asked of me, and I don't have anything scheduled for three more hours. "Do you know of any place nearby that serves good coffee?"

Ten minutes later I've followed its directions out of the Halls of Progress to a place where I can see the Bazaar. This is the first chance I've had to get out and explore, and I don't intend to go far. If Hell was a vast place, Heaven is even larger, and less familiar.

They've given me wings, somehow. I'd never heard about getting wings. Gravity is a personal choice here, and if I wanted to I could spread these out, electric blue fractals stretching on either side of me like an electrical current made solid, and fly to where I'm going... But I'm not ready for that. Walking is good enough.

The cafe I've been directed to isn't the largest, but it is on the edge of the bazaar, something I appreciate. I'm not prepared to walk through crowds of souls and celestials, even if everyone here is...blessed, or what not. Too many hints of Shal-Mari, to me. I can picture one of my Sisters up here, trading favors and Geases for others, trying to drive a deal that will bring her a little closer to freedom from debt.

You never get entirely out of debt. It's not how the universe works.

There's a Seraph behind the counter in the cafe, six bright eyes showing how much caffeine is running through his system. Kai would adore this place. "One Essence for the first cup," he says, "but refills are free for as long as you stay. We have over sixty varieties of coffee, plus several personal blends. What would you like to try?"

I'd like to try a little peace of mind. But I don't think they serve that here. "Whatever you'd recommend," I say, and the Seraph is happy to explain why his final selection is something I'll enjoy.

There's a group of Malakim in one corner, so I head for a couch in the opposite corner, set my coffee down on the side table, pull out a notebook. As personal projects go it's nothing grand, but it's my own to work on. I've figured out how to cut the energy intake down to a reasonable level, the sort of thing you could plug into a standard wall outlet, but the acoustics are tricky. I may have to find someone who knows more about the science of music to resolve the corner cases on this thing.

A reliever refills my cup the instant I set it down empty. "He said you might like to try this blend too," it explains, and the new coffee is sharper than before. "Let me know which you prefer!"

Someone who's just met me wants to make me happy. Even though I've already paid. What a strange place this is.

The Mercurian and Cherub in the center of the room argue about free will, and their debate grows loud enough for me to make out tones that are bordering on surly. Theology has never interested me, so I tune them out and go back to working on my project, but the numbers aren't adding up. I'm definitely going to need help from someone who knows acoustics. I knew them better once, but there are...gaps. Little holes in my memory that weren't there before, frayed edges on my skills where I come to something I knew how to do and find I no longer remember how. 

It would have felt like cheating, somehow, if redemption hadn't taken something from me. But the loss of that Force hurts, a different sort of ache from when I'd had Forces shredded from me before. Entire years gone missing, though none that I think were very interesting. Things I used to be able to do better. 

I'll adjust. I have before.

I pull out the phone they gave me. Compact, silver, and a tiny lightning bolt embedded on the back in blue; someone who put it together had a sense of humor. I'm told this will patch through a central relaying station back on Earth, and let me call anywhere in the world, though they cautioned me about hold times in trying to call long-distance to certain countries. But all I need to get to is Arizona, and this ought to suffice.

Everything has been busy since I got here, with no time to call. Angels of Lightning to work with, others to explain stolen plans to, and regular meetings with Judgment to determine that I'm in no danger of backsliding. I'm not sure how I could backslide; I have no intention of calling in any Geases here in Heaven, and there's no way for me to violate the dissonance conditions of Lightning so long as I'm here. I don't like Judgment; they remind me too much of the Game. But it's in my best interest to cooperate, even if they keep looking at me like I'm about to run back to Earth if not supervised.

Kai would say that they were concerned for me, and doing their best to help. I could use a touch of that attitude before my next meeting. We're supposed to discuss a project I worked on before, and it will be...uncomfortable. To explain everything involved in that project.

The phone rings on the other end seven times, and finally voicemail picks up. It's only the default greeting; I wouldn't be surprised if he never figured out how to check messages or change the greeting.

I check my watch, kept matched with Arizona time. Three in the morning where he is, and he's not at home? But he has other friends, and other things to work on. For all I know he's out somewhere convincing a Balseraph of the error of his ways, or hugging strippers who used to be his students. No doubt when he called the Tether I'd been staying at, they told him everything had gone well, and not to worry.

The third cup of coffee is the best.

Another day of meetings and projects and assignments, the first meeting less painful than I expected. Time blurs together here unless I check my watch. Back in Tartarus there were giant clocks set up in the laboratories, and then later bright red LEDs, displaying a countdown to deadline. Inspiring, in their own way, when trying to come up with something, anything that could be conceivably presented as a result. A Seraph of Judgment stops by to ask me more questions about former activities, future plans, the likelihood of my acquiring any dissonance. Politely-worded questions to figure out if I intend to contact former colleagues. No, a thousand times no: I loathed nearly everyone I ever had to work with, nothing but incompetents and competition, each worse than the other. It irritates me that they'd ask. Surely they've dealt with redemption cases before. Did anyone in Vapula's organization like anyone else? If so, I never saw it. Every other demon was someone who could screw you over, whether by accident or design.

I call again, and it's still the voicemail. I have bad timing; I'll blame the loss of a Force and keep trying later. But it's time for another meeting, this one on a project I never interacted with directly, heard about only from others. But every trace of information I can provide, flawed or not, is something they can use.

At least I'm being useful.

Another day. Another visit from Judgment. I ask the Elohite they've sent if they keep such close tabs on every newly-redeemed angel, and he politely steps around the question. I don't know why they're so worried; I'm safely in Heaven surrounded by a thousand good influences, working on projects assigned to me by an Archangel. My immediate supervisor says I'm doing excellent work, especially considering the gaps in my skills. You'd think they'd have better things to do with their time.

Yet another analysis of stolen schematics finished, and I've nearly gone stiff from hunching over my desk, if such a thing is possible in this form. I stretch, and my wings spread out until they touch the walls, sending up sparks where they meet. I may never get used to having these on my back, but I could grow to enjoy them. They give me a certain sense of... I don't know how to name it. I'd call it belonging, but I haven't seen another redeemed Lilim yet. But they mean I'm something different than I used to be.

Far more useful than horns.

It's six in the morning where Kai lives. Even a night of demon-hunting or partying should send him home by now. But I only get voicemail again, which...does bother me. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.

And if Jack's dragged poor little Kai off into some other wild scheme, just when the kid's finally had a chance to settle back into his assigned routine, I _am_ going to...well. Not hurt him. Have stern words with him, at least. Assuming I could find him.

Windies aren't the sort to ask after the whereabouts of someone. The one Seraph of Lightning that I know Kai is friends with is stationed on Earth, and I don't have his phone number. There's that one Kyriotate who was another redemption case--but, no, it wouldn't be keeping close contact from halfway across the state.

I do know who would be keeping track of Kai, though, so I let my supervisor know I need to take an hour or two for a personal matter, and trudge on over to the Celestial Tribunal. Not my idea of a pleasant way to spend a few hours, but it's the most likely place to find who I need.

A Malakite at one of the entrances nods to me, more politely than I'd expected. "How may I help you, Gifter?"

"...er?"

His expression changes to something near embarrassment. "It's the proper term, isn't it? I asked before I was assigned to this position, just in case. Hadn't had a chance to use it before, though, so it's possible I got it wrong." And his lips start moving as he reviews the titles in his head.

"...ah! No, I'm...sure that's the correct title." Gifter. What a strange name. I don't have anything to give these days except my skills, but I'm doing what I can. He looks as if he's about to apologize again, and I don't want to be stuck here all day reassuring what seems to be a young Malakite. "I'm looking for someone, if you could help me find--well, any of three people, though they're likely to be together. A triad of Judgment, so this seemed the best place to look."

"Ah. Certainly! I shouldn't leave my post, but I can point you towards where they might be. Do you know their names?"

"Dedan, Adala, and..." I can't remember the third name. It makes me want to howl, sometimes, when I find recent things have slipped. I could lose most of the eighteenth century without minding much, but I don't want to lose anything of the time I spent running from the Game. Too many things that _mattered_ happened then. "I'm afraid I've forgotten the third, but he was a Malakite."

"I don't know them myself, but if you go on to the information desk inside, they'd be able to help you there."

"Thank you."

"It's my pleasure to serve."

He really means it. That's what keeps throwing me off here; when people say things like "thank you" or "you're welcome" or even "excuse me", they honestly mean it.

A Seraph at the information desk, coiling over smooth marble floors. She blinks two sets of eyes as I approach. "May I assist you?"

"Yes. I'm looking for a triad, or any of the members of it. Adala, Dedan, and a third whose name I don't recall, a Malakite. Could you tell me where I might find them?"

"The reason for your request?"

I don't think this one would settle for "It's personal," much as I'd prefer to give that answer. "I'm looking for a friend, and I think they would know where he is."

"The details of triad investigations are confidential. Do you have proper authorization?"

"He isn't--I'm not trying to find out information about any investigations. I just want to know if he's in trouble." Which doesn't convey what I mean at all. It's so much easier to be direct when one can be rude. "I mean, I'm concerned for him, and I'm hoping they would be able to tell me if he's safe."

"All information about triad investigations is confidential. Do you have--"

"No, I just..." A quick breath to settle my nerves. Judgment jangles me badly enough when they're being reasonable, but it'll do me no good to lose my temper and make a scene here. "If I wanted to leave a question for them, that they could answer at their discretion, how would I go about doing so?"

"If you leave a message here, it will be forwarded to the appropriate parties in due time."

I can only hope that "in due time" doesn't involve tossing the note into a wastebasket and trusting the will of God to pull it out and deliver it, should it be important. I scribble out a note with the two names I know, doing my best to remain...polite. I am asking them for information they're not obliged to give me.

Zif is waiting for me in the office, examining the papers still spread across my desk. In celestial form she's a quagga with striped wings, as even-faced as in her vessel. They've been extinct for over a century now, gone the way of all the species that managed to be useful enough to humanity to be used up, and not useful enough to be preserved. She sets aside a sheet of paper. "Wouldn't it be more efficient to keep your notes on a computer?"

"I'm more comfortable with paper. I find it easier to organize my thoughts when I have something to hold."

She finds it an acceptable answer, and moves aside. "You seem troubled."

"You're sure you're not an Elohite with an unusual furry exterior?"

"Quite."

"Ah. That settles that question, then." The office chair they gave me is standard issue, ergonomically designed and quite comfortable. I sit down and fold my hands on my lap. "What brings you here today?"

"I've come to see how you're doing. You've gone through the most extreme change possible to any celestial being, complete with a shift in environment, working conditions, and surrounding people. Even positive changes can be stressful. How are you holding up?"

"Better than I'd feared. Worse than I'd hoped." I feel as if I ought to be lying down on a couch for conversations like this. "Is that sufficiently vague, or shall I avoid the question in more detail?"

She actually smiles, though it's a small twitch of the lips. "No, that provides me with enough information to work with. What's troubling you currently? Have you encountered hostility when moving in areas outside the Halls of Progress?"

"Not noticeably." A few pointed looks, the occasional icy tone over someone's response to my questions. I could wish for a more welcoming reception, but I have no reason to expect one, and the people I work with directly are pleasant enough, if occasionally hesitant to give me the details I want. After needing to invoke Geases just to get a straight answer and minimal cooperation from people I was supposed to be coordinating with, this is hardly something to complain about. "I am concerned for Kai, though. He hasn't answered his phone the last three times I've called. Have you heard from him back at the Tether?"

"Only once, when we passed on the news that you had redeemed. He has no reason to call us now that you're no longer living there." One ear folds itself back on her head, body language I can't properly read. "This could be cause for concern, or it could only be the sign of a Servitor of Eli who finds himself easily distracted by other goals. If it would ease your mind, I will ask someone who lives nearby to look into the matter."

"I'd appreciate that." I would _pay_ for that, though I haven't much to pay with these days. "I worry that someone from the Game will hold a grudge. Especially those who were, ah, covered in toffee."

"I was informed of that," she says. "Hardly the most efficient way to deal with hostilities, but appropriate for the Word."

I thought it was dreadfully funny, once I stopped being terrified about someone else running around in my friend's vessel. "Was there anything else you wanted to discuss?"

"No," she says. "Thank you for the time."

"My pleasure."

She leaves the door open on the way out, but no one else steps in to bother me until I'm nearly finished with a tricky bit of planning for a way to reduce the energy consumption of a prototype by at least fifty percent. Small items that require an entire generator on a cart for operation make for poor field test results.

The first sign of a new person in the office is when I'm caught up in the embrace of someone several centimeters shorter than I am, humanoid with a silver aura and glittering golden wings. I'm not used to being hugged by strangers, and it takes a moment for me to shift my thought processes from power management to complete confusion.

"It is _so_ good to finally meet you!" She lets go of me, takes a step back, looks me up and down. "Nice, very nice. Can I see the wings?"

"...er?" It's a reasonable enough request, so I spread them out, and she claps her hands.

"Fractals! Sophie is going to _love_ it, you know, she said a Sparky would end up with fractals or circuitry, and she was entirely right. I was betting on circuitry myself, but I suppose that's more an Elohim sort of mindset than Lilim, isn't it?" Another close hug. "Everyone is looking forward to meeting you. Come on!"

"...er?"

"The rest of the Choir." She drags me out of the office by one hand, and I see that her feet aren't bothering to touch the floor. "I know, there's not really enough of us to call a _Choir_ as such, it's more like a reunion tour where half the members have already died off, but there's at least four of us getting together to welcome you to Heaven properly, five if Sadira has time to stop by. I wish someone had told me _earlier_ , or we could have caught Delen before she went back to Earth. Plus there are some of us I've never met, and this would be a great excuse to call them in, if they'd answer email--"

"I'm working on--"

"Don't worry, I already checked with your supervisor before stopping by your office, and he said it was a marvelous idea, you can't spend _all_ your time on work or your head will swell up with numbers and explode like a dandelion. Poof! So, even objectively speaking, this is a good idea."

It's not like I can argue with that.

I knew, in theory, that there were other Bright Lilim in Heaven. Both before and after redemption I was assured that this had been done successfully before, that I was not a unique case, that these things did, on rare occasions, happen. But I filed it away with things like the Higher Heavens, a plausible theory I didn't expect to see in practice. Now here's one dragging me along, bubbling in an excellent imitation of certain other Lilim I knew who wished to seem cute and non-threatening, but this is no imitation, only...the way she is.

I hope not all of them are quite this...perky.

"So. Ah. Who do you work for?" A safe enough question around here, where no one looks nervously over their shoulder before answering it.

"Marc, though I'm currently on loan to the Sword for a bit. What did you think of Laurence?" We're heading towards the Bazaar, unsurprisingly. She hasn't stopped smiling since I first saw her. Typical for Heaven, but unnerving on a Lilim, even a Bright one.

"I haven't met him yet."

"Really? That's a surprise. He usually wants to talk to all the Bright Lilim as soon as possible. He's _so_ adorable."

"...adorable?" Not the first word I would have chosen to apply to the Commander of the Host, a Malakite and member of the War faction.

"Mm. Yes. The black feathers, and the way he _talks_ , and he stands up so straight and, oh, you'll have to see it for yourself."

"I've been busy..."

She rolls her eyes at that, and pulls him closer with her arm hooked into mine until we're walking side by side. "Of course, you're working for Jean. Doesn't anyone over there ever stop to have _fun_?"

"Work /is/ fun." I have reasonable deadlines. Clear objectives. A supervisor who won't make me take a fall for his mistakes. What more could I ask for?

"Ha! You're a Sparky through and through. It's not something I would have imagined a Sister as, you know. Trade, Creation, Dreams, Flowers... but Lightning?"

"I...like electricity."

"Hey, don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled that you're fitting in so well there! Plenty of room for variation in all the Daughters, you know? It's just not what I would have suspected. And of course cooped up in your office none of us saw you to say hi, wouldn't have even known you were here if Lin hadn't heard it from a Judge she's been trying to flirt with lately. I think it's a lost cause, he's too wrapped up in his duty to even _notice_ her attempts, but it can't hurt to try, right?"

Flirting with a Servitor of Judgment. The mind boggles. Well, my mind boggles; apparently she finds this normal behavior from a Bright Lilim. Not for the first time, it occurs to me that I don't fit into my Band--ah, Choir--dreadfully well. "I...suppose not, no."

"It's a little more crowded, further in," she says. "Oh! I completely forgot, sorry. I'm Daane. Have you chosen a new name yet? If you wanted to, that is, I know that some prefer to keep the name that Mother gave them."

"You can call me Mannie." I have no great love for the name I was given, but it seems inappropriate to toss it off without fanfare. Though I suppose redemption is fanfare enough... Still, I'll wait to change it until I've come up with something better.

"Let's fly the rest of the way," Daane says, and spreads her wings out, letting them catch the light in a thousand sparkles. "Now there's something I never get tired of. Come on!"

If my supervisor says this is a good idea, far be it from me to contradict him. But flying is...odd. I'm used to the stability of a solid floor beneath my feet, measured steps, and...wings. What am I supposed to do with wings?

This will take some getting used to.

I keep up a sedate pace for fear of doing something embarrassing; Daane flies ahead and around and beside me, giving me steady chatter on how nice it is to meet a new Bright. The way she refers to me makes me sound as if I'm a child, which would rankle if she didn't mean it so kindly. I suppose by angelic standards I'm barely more than a fledgling, and with less experience in the workings of Heaven than a reliever who's had a few decades to grow.

We end in a room tucked away inside Marc's Tower, one with a very large open window for easy access. Inside four other Brights, all...smiling. Five Lilim _enjoying_ talking to each other, without the faintest hint of twisty scheming in sight. They even have tea. And cookies.

There's something surreal about all of this.

We land, Daane more neatly than I can manage, but at least I don't trip on the windowsill. "Practically had to drag him away from his work," she says, laughing. "But here he is. Everyone, meet Mannie. Mannie, meet...well, everyone. Oo! Are those chocolate chip?"

"Sadira," says one, and she hugs me. I can get used to this. Really. It will stop making me twitch...oh, the tenth or twelfth time it happens, probably. "Of Dreams, and very glad to see you." She runs a hand along one of my wings, and it twitches as I do. "So I _was_ right. Lovely patterns, those. Very reminiscent of lightning. I hope they're treating you well over there?"

"Yes, just fine--" Another hug, another Bright Lilim.

"I'm Lin," she says, "Servitor of Novalis." A step back for another one of those appraising looks. "You should stop by the Glade some time. They'll work you to exhaustion over there if you let them."

"No, really, I quite enjoy my work." I'm almost prepared for the next hug, though it's an enthusiastic one that tries to squeeze the breath from me.

"The name's Cory, good to meet you, wings are lovely, so on and so forth, and why didn't anyone let us _know_ you were here? Another week and I'd be down on Earth again no more the wiser. There ought to be, I don't know, a mailing list or something. Of course, I'm not sure who'd be responsible for administrating that." She's as tall as I am, with a nose like a hawk's. Not a fluffy sort, even if she is smiling as much as the rest. "But, hey, you're a Sparky, maybe you could set up something like that?"

"...maybe?"

The last Bright Lilim does not, to my relief, hug me. Instead she stands up and curtsies, holding a spiderweb skirt out...properly. I haven't seen a gesture that formal in decades. "Kavita," she says, "Bright Lilim of Creation, and happy to see you here." Her smile is more reserved than that of the others, and she sits down again afterwards, hands in her lap. "Currently in service to Trade, until..." She makes a small motion with her hand. "Tea?"

"Yes. Thank you." They've left me an open chair by the window; I take the unspoken invitation and sit down. "I, ah, didn't quite expect this sort of welcoming."

"Some angels don't understand," Daane says, "and it can be hard at first. There's no real context for you to work with, no well-known opposite number to have encountered before and remember... So we're here to give you what help we can."

"If any of the, well, more aggressive types start hassling you," says the one with butterfly wings, Lin, "let me know, and I'll see if I can help smooth things over? They don't mean harm by it, but some people have trouble working through old prejudices, or dealing with the unknown."

"And if they continue, I can smack them for you," says Cory brightly. "Oh, Lin, don't _look_ at me like that, it's not like I would--okay, I'd speak _sternly_ to them, is that better? Right. Well. Or challenge them to a duel, it's not like we don't have--fine! Talking! Only talking! Please don't start sniffling, it's _embarrassing_ when you--I mean, I agreed, only talking. Really." She leans over to me and mutters, "It's _so_ hard to deal with Flowerchildren."

"...ah?" I seem to have run out of useful words. So I have a cookie. And tea. Quite good tea. The teacups are shaped like individual flowers, more delicately done than anything of the like that I've seen on Earth or in Hell. 

Naturally--or as naturally as anything can occur, when put in the context of six Bright Lilim sitting in a room with tea and cookies--the topic of conversation swings to redemption.

"It's like opening your eyes for the first time, when you never knew there was such a thing as sight," Daane says, and I recognize the gestures her hands make, the attempt to pull words out of the air to describe something that can't be pinned down. "I didn't expect to come out the other side, but..." She shakes her head. "I'm told I nearly didn't. I had one Celestial Force left on the other side, but it was worth it."

"It felt like it took forever," Lin says, and drops her gaze as she speaks. They're telling me things they wouldn't speak of to anyone else, though they've known me less than an hour, because I'm...one of them. How very strange. "I thought maybe this was what it was like, to...disassemble. All your Forces torn apart, and maybe it was that one last moment, forever, and I was stuck there in time for an eternity of that moment... And then the other side and it was...home. I'd never known about home until I was there."

Sadira shakes her head, and all she'll say is, "Waking up. Finally."

Cory grins at us. "If you've ever been caught up by a wave in the ocean, tumbled around until you don't know what way is up, dragged out to sea, and then finally a hand grabs you and you're pulled up into the air... " She takes a fast swig of her tea, and pours another cup. "Had to have some bad habits knocked out of me, I'll tell you that much, but he's a good teacher, he is..." She doesn't seem inclined to mention the name of her Superior, and everyone else knows. I won't ask. If she says Dominic I might have to run screaming, and that would be awkward.

Kavita, the Creationer, and I want to hear what she says. She smiles at us over the rim of her teacup, and turns it about in her hands. "I honestly believed I would die," she says. "I told him this, as I went in, and asked that if my Forces scattered, could he catch a few and make something else out of them? Something better than I had ever been, so that at least I could have come to some small use in my life. And he said to me, 'My child, if you come apart, I will put you back together as best I can.'" Another slow sip of tea. "When the Archangel who helped to form the Earth itself tells me that, how can I not believe him?"

"He's entirely convincing when he speaks," I say, and she nearly drops her cup.

"You've met him?"

"Yes, he..." I almost can't say anything, because she Needs to hear this so much, it hurts to see it in her eyes. "I was, ah, on the run. From the Game. With a friend, a Servitor of Eli. They caught up with us, and he...called for help." He must be off on another strange little adventure of his own this type, there's probably a note waiting for his triad, or he told them beforehand and they didn't bother to pass the information on. There can't be anything wrong, or I would know. "The next thing I know someone else is in his vessel, and he walks through the door like there aren't four Gamesters with weaponry on the other side, and... I followed, what else can you do in a situation like that?"

"He would know what to do." I wish I could bring Eli back myself for her, anything so that she wouldn't look at me like that. "Please, continue."

"I, ah, stood there looking like an idiot, and he...took care of things. Dropped a _swimming pool_ over the three in the center of the room, and while they're standing there inside it the whole thing is full of _toffee_ , never seen anything like that before and I don't think I will again. And there's one left and he, ah, walked over and picked her up and said--I don't know _what_ he said, I couldn't hear, and quite frankly I was still paying attention to the giant pool of toffee with three demons in it, but he stuffed her into a tuba. And...just like that, no more danger."

If I stopped the story here, none of them would know the difference. But Zif tells me that confession is good for the soul. "He could have gone then. He'd saved his Servitor, and me in the process. But he...walked over to where I was standing. As if I could have anything to say that would interest him..." I gave him back the talisman then, the only thing I could think of, but a little editing of events won't hurt, I don't want to go into the history of that thing. "So I asked him what I should do. And he said. Ah. 'He thinks you have potential. But an aptitude for something is no use unless you pursue it.'" He took the notepad from my jacket and handed me a note for Kai, an origami frog, and then it was just...Kai again. Back there staring at me.

"He knew you could redeem." She says it like it's gospel. I give Kavita a nod, though I'm not sure it was that he knew I could, more that he...thought I ought to try. "But he wasn't the one..."

"No, and he knew that much too. Jean was a better fit." Like gears turning, running a current through an old wire and watching it spark to life.

"What was it like?" Daane asks, and then blushes, an oddly human thing to do. "I'm sorry, if you'd rather not talk about it..."

"No, it's..." Now I'm the one grasping at the air for words. "It's as if for all my life I'd been staring at a clock made of paper powered by two lemons, and someone was telling me to make it speak French. Now it's like... someone's handed me a perfectly tuned watch, and pointed me at an atomic clock, and asked me to make sure the times match." I don't want to talk about the process, about feeling my mind unravel, those cold, precise hands trying to hold me together, bits of _me_ slipping away until I was afraid I'd have nothing of myself left, that I'd lose the things I wanted to remember forever.

"A Sparky to the core," Sadira says.

"I hope so."

The moment's passed, and now everyone's back to smiles and laughter, though Kavita keeps giving me these sidelong looks, as if she intends to track me down later to hear the story again. The recipe for this blend of tea gets passed around, and I copy it down more to make Lin happy than out of any need to know. Though I could put together a simple device to let you store all your various ingredients in different bins, and then decide on percentages of each to be blended easily in custom mixes... I sketch out a quick diagram and a few notes on the same sheet as the recipe, something to work on in my spare time when I'm done with other projects.

"I should get back," Daane says. "But if you ever need anything, Mannie, or just someone to talk to--"

"I'll keep you in mind," I say, and stand up as well, now that it's polite to do so. Four more hugs, Cory's the tightest.

"Take care of yourself," Cory says. She whispers in my ear, "And if anyone's too much of a jerk to you, let _me_ know first, okay?"

I fly far enough to find a quiet place to land, then walk the rest of the way back. Straight into an entire triad of Judgment waiting in my office. The Malakite already looks impatient.

Oh, lovely. And Dedan is no less intimidating as a massive winged lion than he was in a vessel. The Seraph peers down at me critically. "We received a message from you, but when we came to speak with you, there was no one in your office." The tip of her tail smacks against the floor. "Not even a _note_."

They can't just dislike me, now they have to be _delayed_ by me. I would sit down, but there's a Malakite standing in front of my chair. No chair is comfortable enough to be worth working around that. "I'm sorry I wasn't here," I say. "I didn't realize you would come so quickly." Or at all.

"Something about Kai, you said." The Cherub's great yellow eyes are fixed on me. "Of course we would come by. Now what is it?"

"I've called three times, three days in a row, and haven't gotten any answer. He used to--well, I'm worried, I hadn't heard anything from him, and I thought _you_ three would know if he was just, ah, busy." It sounds so idiotic, nothing but suppositions and baseless worry, now that I'm standing in front of the three of them.

Dedan shakes his mane and bares his teeth. If he's trying to be intimidating, it's working. "Has it occurred to you that he might just not be taking your calls?"

"He wouldn't do that." Would he? Adala offers no indication to the Truth of what I've said. "He said he'd stop by the next time he was here--"

"You don't _deserve_ to be here," Dedan says. I wish he had hit me instead.

"We'll look into it," says the Malakite, whose name I still can't remember, and it's strange that he should sound the most sympathetic of the three. "He's probably fine. Thank you for letting us know." His hand on the shoulder of the Cherub, and the three of them are gone.

I can't breathe. I don't need to breathe here, but I can't breathe. Sit down. Nearly miss the chair. I can't see anything on my desk, can't remember when my next meeting is scheduled, or what I'm supposed to be working on.

I don't deserve to be here.


	2. An Intermission With Judgment

"That was unkind," Nomikos said to Dedan, once they had passed out of the Halls of Progress. "And unnecessary."

"But true." Dedan's tail lashed behind him.

"You believe it is true," Adala said, "but nonetheless, Nomikos is correct. It was unkind and unnecessary."

"Most Holy, we are not the sort to hide the truth on account of people's _feelings_." The Cherub's teeth snapped together. "That someone like _him_ would have found his way here, when there are those more deserving--"

"The ways of the Lord are mysterious," said Nomikos. "If he redeemed, he has been found worthy enough."

"We are Judges, my friend Virtue. Would you have me stop judging people simply because it offends them? He's atoned for none of his crimes--"

"Peace," Adala said, and moved between the angry glares that had begun. "This argument serves no purpose but to distract us. Our schedule has enough flexibility that we may move Kai's appointment further forward. If he is well, nothing but a few moments of our time has been lost, and that in a sufficiently worthy cause to be justified. If he is not well, we may thank the Gifter for a warning that might otherwise have come too late."

The Malakite and Cherub conceded that this was true, though one did so grudgingly.

Rescheduling proved to be only a small matter of logistics, and within an hour the triad approached Kai's apartment. Dedan strode on in the front through the door, stopped abruptly. "And you are--"

The man in the apartment folded arms across his chest. "You may call me Jeff," he said, and then, as the other two entered, frowned slightly. "Ah. I apologize. I had not recognized you." He inclined his head to the group, and waited until they'd closed the door to speak again. "Japhiel, Seraph of Lighting. What brings Judgment here?"

"We have a regular appointment with this Ofanite," Dedan snapped, sharply enough to earn a look from Nomikos.

"But it wasn't scheduled until tomorrow," said Japhiel mildly. "The punctuality of Judgment Servitors is renowned."

Adala frowned. "And why are you here?"

"It was requested of me. I've had dealings with Kai before, and I was asked to look in on him to see if he was well."

"Who requested it of you?"

"Zif, a Cherub of Lightning." Japhiel turned to wander through the small apartment, not touching anything. "None of the messages in his inbox have been read in the last six days. He has never been adept with computers, but has typically been prompt about reading the messages I send him. I intended to speak with the teachers he works with next, and was considering how to best approach them when you entered."

Nomikos made note of the book laid open across the couch, the piccolo lying on the computer desk. "He can't have been gone long, if he has gone anywhere. Someone would have noticed."

"No doubt. But the people who would notice are humans, and seldom have reason to pass such information on to angels." Japhiel shut down the computer, and looked up at the triad. "It's not as if his Archangel's organization, or what remains of it, is so well structured these days as to track one Servitor playing a minor part in the Symphony. Especially someone who isn't in a high-risk Role."

"Someone should have noticed," Dedan said. "And...perhaps he's only been busy of late." 

"Kai has many friends," said Japhiel quietly, "but most of them have other duties to attend to, and contact him infrequently. I believe that you three are the angels he meets with most often. If anyone were to notice him missing, it would be you."

The triad exchanged meaningful glances. "We will handle this from here," Adala said. Japhiel bowed to them, and left. She turned to her companions. "The most likely hypothesis at this point is that Kai is missing."

"Again," said Nomikos. "But I fear it was not of his choosing, this time. He _did_ say he would leave a note. And he's...usually been quite responsible. Especially about promises."

"Two Cherubim assigned to watch the welfare of a Lilim safe in Heaven," Dedan said, his tone bitter, "and not one for Kai. It is...unbalanced."

"Hold," said Adala. "We will investigate further before forming preliminary conclusions. It would be unJust of us to let our opinions influence our treatment of this matter."

"Kai works with multiple teachers; tracking them down could be difficult. Let's start with someone in a position of authority, to whom his absence would be reported." Nomikos strode out the door. The other two followed, each evaluating the situation silently, and reaching different conclusions.

The chair of the board of directors had a personal office with a waiting room attached, the only one of its like in the community center. He also had a personal secretary, another unique privilege. The young woman gave them a disinterested glance as they approached, her attention mostly on the computer screen in front of her. "Can I help you?" Nothing in the way she said it implied that she wished to assist anyone.

"We'd like to meet with the chair of the board," Nomikos said. "It's quite urgent."

She rolled her eyes. "He's not in at the moment."

Adala shook her head slightly.

"How strange," Nomikos said. "I'm quite sure he's in there right now." He leaned forward, his hands flat on the surface of her desk. "You're certain he isn't in at the moment?"

The secretary's eyes widened. "He's out--well, he's very busy, you have to understand, he has lots of things to do, and he doesn't want to be disturbed... Could I make you an appointment? For...tomorrow, I could get you in first thing tomorrow morning..."

Dedan strode forward and opened the door to the inner office.

"We'll let ourselves in, thank you," said Nomikos, and followed more quickly than was strictly courteous.

The chair of the board was a middle-aged man, nearly handsome except for too much of a tan, in clothing casual enough to remind those around him that he could dress as he pleased and they could not. He frowned as they came in. Adala shut the door behind them. "If you'll excuse me, I'm busy," he said, his hand reaching for the intercom.

Dedan slid it out of the man's reach. "Kai Dawson," he said. "Have you seen him lately?"

"No, not in several days. What are you _doing_ in my office?" His voice had the petulant whine of a man accustomed to getting his own way.

"Asking questions," Dedan said, and Nomikos opened his mouth, but Adala made a small gesture and he shut it again. Let the angry Cherub ask the questions, and see what happens.

"Why are you interrupting my day? Don't you think I have better things to do with my time than be accosted with questions by strangers?" The man stood up, and shook a finger at them. "Get out of my office right _now_ , before I call the local authorities and have you removed!"

Dedan grabbed the man by the collar, pulled him forward over the desk. Nomikos started to protest, but again, a gesture for Adala. Let it be. The Malakite closed his hands into fists and stood still. "How _long_ has he been missing?" asked the Cherub. "Answers. Now."

"A few days," say the man, eyes wider than before. "I don't keep track of everyone who works here--"

"But you do keep track of that one," said Adala. "Why?"

"Get out of my office." More pleading than angry, now. "He--the teacher he works with said he failed to show for class six days ago, he's been gone that long, at least. I don't know where he is."

Adala shook her head, frowning. Truth, but little more to it than that. Another sign for Nomikos, and the Malakite stepped forward, took a look into the man's virtue.

"Don't let go. We don't want _this_ one getting very far." Nomikos smiled now, a small indulgence. "You know, Kai's usually good at picking up on infernal activity this close to where he works, but someone as subtle as your kind _would_ slip through. Fortunately, we're here to correct the mistake."

The man jerked frantically away from Dedan, but now the Cherub's arm was around his neck, one hand flailing while the other was pinned back. "What did you _do_ with him?"

No words, only desperate struggles. And no cries for help, which said something all its own. Dedan looked briefly to Adala for confirmation, then pulled the man backwards across the desk to the center of the room, surrounded by the three of them.

"It wasn't my plan," said the demon, not loudly. "I didn't even want to agree to it."

"True," said Adala, "but only because it might harm your objectives. Irrelevant."

Nomikos stepped forward into the demon's field of vision. "If you cooperate," he said, "I'll kill you afterwards. If not, we'll take you to a Tether, and force you celestial instead of just slitting your throat."

Adala allowed herself a smile as well. "Truth."


	3. In Which An Ofanite Falls Into The Worst Company Possible

I know every way out of here. I know how to get to the nearest Tether of Creation the fastest way possible. I have mapped in my mind how to reach every nearby phone booth, internet cafe, police station, anything that could get me in contact with someone. And none of it does me any good when I'm chained to the wall.

I should have taken Jack up on his offer to teach me how to pick locks.

Right now the only demon in the room is the Balseraph. Not watching me, not like there's _any_ need. And, yeah, it frustrates me that I can be this...helpless. Not even worth _watching_ when most of them are out. 

I stopped yanking on the chain in frustration three days ago. Mostly. There's a six-foot radius of nothing around me because on the second day I got a chair leg most of the way through the Habbalite's chest before they pulled me off of her again. They cleaned up the broken glass right after that bottle broke, not because it was cutting my bare feet (the left shoe went down the Balseraph's throat, the right shoe was confiscated afterward) but because they were worried about what I might do with it.

Nothing. There's nothing for me to _work_ with here. Creativity has its limits, and they've been very good at putting those limits up all around me. None of them come close enough for me to hit them, not anymore. Breaking my bones stopped being amusing pretty fast, and the Impudite got annoyed about needing to heal me so often. Far end of the room is a table, chairs, cabinet, sink, nothing I can _reach_.

If I could get the newspaper the Balseraph is reading, I could do something pointed with it. But he's not going to get close enough to let me do that, is he? No.

I don't think I've ever been so angry in my life.

I'm not sure if it would be worse or not if they had me in the Will Shackles, but they're saving those for someone special. All I rate is the ring around my wrist that keeps me tied to this vessel, and a chain back to the wall so that I can't run. The whole thing's bolted on so tightly I haven't made any progress at all on pulling it out. Pointless. Trying is _pointless_. I am so stuck here there are Malakim of Stone who are easier to move than I am.

I am not getting caught up in that rut of the mind again. Tomorrow Adala and the rest will stop by and notice I'm missing, and then, then, I don't know what then. But they'll look, I'm sure they will, and then _someone_ will know, it's not like everyone would just leave me here. Right? Jack will stop by at some point, he'd notice I'm gone, he would do something, Kelly would come along to help. There are people who are looking for me. Will be looking for me. Really.

It's unfair that I'm not only angry, I'm horribly bored. Bored. Very bored. I don't have the mind to compose things in my head for long, I can't keep it all floating in my mind, and it's not like they're going to give me anything to write with. I mean, I proved I can make a good projectile weapon out of the paperclips I found in my pockets, so they're being really...boring.

The boredom isn't the worst part, but it's the hardest to deal with.

I yank on the chain again. It has a boring clank. Everything boring. The last time I did a rendition of the William Tell Overture, arranged for chain clanking and whistling, I was unimpressed with the results. The part where the Habbalite started screaming at me to shut up _was_ momentarily entertaining, but now she just walks out of the room if I start, and the Balseraph doesn't seem to care.

He turns a page on the paper. I can't make out anything more than the headlines from here, not in this lighting, and I've already arranged the letters in "Congress Debates Lawson Bill" into as many different words as I can come up with.

I bet Mannie would know how to get out of here.

I wish I could make the Balseraph twitch. He doesn't. I can reliably get the Habbalite into a screaming rage if I work at it, they've started learning the warning signs and getting her out of the room before then, and I can get on the Impudite's nerves, but the Bal just...sits there. And watches. And then he _says_ things and sometimes I know he's lying and sometimes I don't. He's not the worst, but he's nearly the worst, I hate what he does to my head. 

Two hours after the triad visited. Two _hours_. Enough time to make sure there was nothing forgotten, no reason for anyone to stop by again, for me to finish my last class for the day. And now it's been almost a week, I've been gone for a _week_ and I don't think anybody who would put things together knows. Not yet. What if they think I ran off again? I told them I'd leave a message if I had to miss an appointment, I told them, but I don't know if they'll remember, do they even trust me enough to believe I would, anymore? I should have left a note the first time I ran off with Jack, I should have send word to them sooner.

It's not helpful to keep reviewing escape routes in my head. Not helpful at all.

The Balseraph folds his paper away and stands up. Walks over to just out of my reach, I know the precise line, a few inches closer and I could _do_ something but he knows the line too. Time must be up, because a few hours ago I knew he was lying to me, and he frowned, and sat down, and started reading the paper. And now I know he's going to say something, he's going to say something awful and I know it'll be a lie and yet, and yet, I might still believe him.

He looks at me for a moment, and then he says, "They've all forgotten about you. Nobody cares."

How can he _say_ things like that? But it's true, isn't it? If anybody cared, they'd have found me by now, they'd have noticed, I would have heard something. The Boss has big plans, he knows what's going on, but it's more important than I am, and he has other things to think about. The triad's going to think I've run off, if they bother to stop by at all. Why would they stop by? I never have anything new to tell them.

And if Mannie really cared, he would have called. Wouldn't he?

It's all a dull ache inside me. Of course they don't care. It's not like I can do anything right in the first place. The Balseraph is still standing there watching me, but what does it matter? I'm never going to get out of here. Nobody's coming. And when the demons get bored they'll just walk away and leave me and I will be stuck here _forever_. Because nobody's going to remember me anyway. And why does he have to tell me these things?

Because he's a damn liar, that's why. Damned from birth or by a Fall, it doesn't matter, this is what Balseraphs _do_. If I had Mannie's Songs, the demon would be on fire by now, but all I can do is glare. "Liar," I say.

"Never. You simply have a hard time accepting the truth." He walks back to the table and sits down. Picks up the paper.

On fire. _Repeatedly_.

I'll have to ask Mannie to teach me that Song.

When I get out of here.

Which will happen. Because someone will come find me.

Eventually.

I hope.

The door at the top of the stairs opens. The Habbalite again. Let's see. Already played with the "You're not a real angel" line this morning, it's unlikely to work again so soon. Time for another round of tactic number three, "If you're so strong, why don't you try to beat me in a fair fight?" That one's only worked once before, but I think it's worth another try. She can't be much smarter than I am if she keeps falling for those sorts of tricks; it's not like I'm a master schemer.

I dance. I hit things. Sometimes I play the piccolo well. Scheming, like cooking, not so much with the being good at it. I'm beginning to wish I were a little less tough and a little more smart, because the hitting things isn't doing me much good this week, and I'd like to give actual _thinking_ a shot, if I could.

She walks forward to that same invisible line, ready for another round. The Balseraph says something in Helltongue; it sounds insulting, and she responds in kind. He snaps back, she says something arrogant, and then they glare at each other. I have no idea what they're saying, but I'm guessing it goes something like this:

"Too afraid to get any closer to a chained-up angel?"

"I don't see _you_ walking up to it."

"That's because I had a _watch_ shoved down my throat, and I learn from experience."

"At least I'm not stupid enough to approach with easily removed items hanging about me."

Okay. So it probably didn't go quite like that. But I have to keep myself amused somehow.

I've bounced emotions back at her twice, though she won as often as not, and she doesn't try that anymore. Something to be grateful for, I guess. Very small amounts of gratitude.

"Good afternoon, Kai," she says. She's holding a piece of paper in her hand, and makes a show of looking it over. "It's time for more of the truth, I know you're fond of that, and it looks like we're up to 1837! Ah, no, my mistake. 1836, December." She flips the paper over. "We wouldn't want to skip anything."

I hate her smile. I hate what she does to me.

I hate that I think she's telling the truth, on these things.

"Let's see. In December he was assigned to...well, they've blacked out the name of the project, but it was in a small town in Russia. I don't suppose you've ever been to Russia? No? No matter. The local officials attributed the sudden rise of deaths to an outbreak of cholera, but apparently it was due to--ah, they've blacked out _that_ bit too, but, oh my. Nearly three hundred dead in the space of a month. That must have been an interesting project they were working on there. And, isn't that sweet. In January of 1837, _there's_ the bit I was looking at, he received his first Distinction from Vapula." She smiles to me over the paper. A mother reading her children bedtime stories. "I'm almost to the part where he spends twenty-five years in Tartarus, working on projects involving electricity and damned souls. But let's not rush ahead."

I knew he was a demon for centuries. I knew this when I met him. I knew who he worked for, and the sorts of things he must have done. That doesn't mean I ever wanted to hear the details. And now that I've heard these things, I don't think I'll be able to forget.

I'm not a Seraph. I don't work for Revelation. Seeking out the truth isn't in my job description. I didn't want to hear about the projects he worked on, the rewards he received, the other demons he had to tear down, betray, shove aside to get where he did.

I'll admit I'm curious about what happened when he left Russia. But I was hoping to get the story from him.

"You shouldn't let this bother you," she says finally, putting the paper away. "It's only the truth. And sometimes the truth hurts, but only if you're weak."

"Unlock this chain and I'd give you a demonstration of just how weak I am." This would be so much easier if they were War, even Fire. I can _handle_ bursts of rage. If one of these demons would just be angry enough in the right direction, I might wake up next to my Heart and things would be...not okay. This is so not okay, there is no way I'm recovering from what they're doing to my Role, but at least I'd be out. Of. Here.

"You say that as if physical weakness is the only type that matters," and the Balseraph is watching her, wondering if he'll need to intervene again. Probably not; she's too calm. More's the pity. I wish I could use words as effectively as I can use a paperclip. "But that's only a manifestation, a single element on this plane of existence, and little important anywhere else. If you were strong enough, the truth wouldn't hurt you."

I could tell her that hearing this doesn't hurt, but they'd both know it to be a lie. "You're going to an awful lot of trouble to pass on incomplete facts. Was there a point to all this?"

"You'll learn."

"Probably not. I'm a slow learner. Ask anyone who knows me." She's leaning just a little bit closer, another two inches and it'll be worth trying a grab. "Or maybe it's just that you're a lousy teacher. Your methodology is all over the place, you can't seem to keep your facts straight from one day to the next, and I'm still unclear on what the course objectives are. Aren't you supposed to have a syllabus or something?"

"You are. An _idiot_."

"Yeah, but at least I'm an angel."

Like the last graceful glide down of a performance. If she's going to be so dismissive of Corporeal Forces, she should learn to stay out of my reach. It's easy to step out of the way of her fist, grab her wrist, _pull_ , and when she's down on the floor that's _my_ fist in her face thank you very much, I'd love it if she had a notebook but while she's still trying to hit me I have her jacket off and wrapped around her neck, _much_ more satisfying to do that--

The Balseraph pulls me away, though I manage to bite his hand hard enough to draw blood and gouge out a good chunk of his palm. He's stronger than I am, enough that by the time I've twisted free the Habbie's already retreated out of reach, and then the Bal drops and...heh. Runs. Tries to do it in a dignified manner, but that's a run, it is. I slam into the end of my leash and nearly fall from the impact, but, that's something to keep me happy for...hours, at least.

The Habbie stares at me. Hate in those eyes, and I grin at her. Just try it. Fifty-fifty says she'd manage it, but is she willing to try it after that? "Self-control of a _gerbil_ ," I say, and it's no great testament to my own self-control when I'm pushing like this when it's probably going to end with me cowering under her resonance again, but how can I resist? "You were saying something about inner strength?"

But before she can try anything the Bal is arguing with her in Helltongue, two demons snapping at each other in words that twist at my ears and almost make sense, but never quite resolve into anything I can understand. I'd worry more if I could understand them. I spin on my toes and assign meanings to each line.

The door opens again. The Impudite's back.

"You're bleeding," he says to the Balseraph. "The two of you can't stay out of reach for a few hours while I'm gone?" I'm not even worth his attention. The dog chained up in the back yard, and the kids forgot to take it for a walk again. "Now shut up and get out of my way for a while. I'll fix your hand later."

Such a charmer, that one. This is his turn to hurt me, but it...stopped, mostly, a few days ago. Or at least it's not as actively painful as it used to be. Like a motorcycle crash, skidding across the road and down through the gravel and into the dirt on the side, and then lying there bleeding... It still hurts, but the crash is a done deal. Nothing I can do about it now.

Fine, I'll admit it. That's what hurts the most. That's the bleeding in this place. That I really can't think of any way to do anything about it.

"I heard back from our colleague," says the Impudite. He doesn't bother to pretend to be friendly the way the Habbalite does, either doesn't think it would work or doesn't care enough either way. "That's the third report of inappropriate behavior on your part towards children, now. I imagine it'll be able to bump the reports up to a dozen or so within the week, if it does its job properly. So far the board is keeping the issue quiet, but leaks are already developing. People are beginning to talk. Parents are starting to pull their children out of classes." And finally a smile from him. "You should see what Media does with this sort of thing once the news breaks. Which it will. I would guess that the entire center will close down, by the time the story's been chewed to death and left behind to rot. Nobody wants to send their children to a place with that sort of scandal."

If I could I would pull his heart out, but what good would it do me now? The damage is done. This is just the bleeding.

I'm not reacting enough to satisfy him, so now he's pushing. "It had a hard time convincing some of the children to say the right things, you know. Strange how even children can resist saying what they don't want to say. But now that they've done so, nobody will believe them if they try to take it back. Children trying to protect a favorite teacher, an adult who took advantage of their trust... It's a sign of the times. You can't trust anyone, these days." 

I can think of two dozen people by name who I'd trust with my life, at least half of them that I'd trust with...something more valuable. It's none of his business. I stare back at him and...I don't pull at the chain. No point in pulling. Try not to think of the bleeding, nearly five decades spent there with one Role or another, building that center up into a place where people could learn, create...

It's not supposed to _hurt_ like this at this point. It's not. There's nothing I can do. Focus on forward momentum, Kai. Things you can still change, what you can affect, holding out until someone arrives. This is not the worst part of the day. Really.

He told me to keep up the good work, and I _can't_ , I've lost the work he entrusted to me. Isn't this supposed to stop hurting once I accept that and move on? Recover, you idiot little Ofanite, forgot falling on your face and keep up with the dance.

I don't know the steps anymore.

He's still waiting for a response. I don't intend to provide one. "What, not trying to run off and change things? Rescue the wee munchkins from the big bad demons? I thought you were an _angel_ , Kai. Aren't you supposed to be out protecting the weak?" He shrugs. "If it's such a bother for you to get out and do what you want to do, I suppose we could bring someone _here_ for you to protect, though I think you'd have a hard time of it in your current condition."

I will rip his arms off and beat him to death with them if he tries that. I swear I will. I will find _some_ way to do it.

Must remember to start humming the next time his back is turned.

If I could just get _somewhere_ else. Anywhere else but here. The chain clanks, I'm pulling at it without even meaning to. That they're already damned is no great consolation to me. I hate this.

"A Calabite could take apart that entire chain with a look, you know," says the Impudite. Casually passing on the information. "I'm told it's handy."

"I'm not a Calabite." Nasty stagnant demons, all their motion going elsewhere and they go nowhere at all. I am an Ofanite. I _move_. When I can. I would give all sorts of things up to be able to run out of here, but giving up myself would make it...pointless.

"You could be." The Impudite shakes his head. "It's your own fault this is happening, you know. You _could_ get out of here. If you'd done so days ago, you could have even fixed things before it spun too far out of control. Too late for that now, and no one to blame but yourself. If you want to get out of here so badly, why don't you break the chain and run?"

I sit down because when I'm sitting I am not pulling at this leash. Chained dog in the backyard howling at the moon. Donald Lee taught me a marvelous little ditty eleven years ago, so I begin the humming. All I can manage right now is petty, but there's something faintly satisfying in a song whose lyrics begin, "I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves..."

The Impudite's not impressed. I'm not trying to impress anyone, only to annoy. Counting time until someone shows up and I should be _doing_ something, going somewhere, but I...can't. I can't go anywhere at all.

Annoying an Impudite is the second-highest point of my day. This is downright embarrassing. The Boss would be disappointed in me.

"Can the two of you manage to stay here with him and _not_ bleed all over yourselves?" the Impudite asks, and the Habbalite snarls something at him, stomps out the door. Slams it behind her. The Balseraph shrugs, sits down with his paper.

And then it's just the two of us again.

I'd expected more...efficiency, somehow, from the Game. At least, I assume it's the Game, not that they've bothered to tell me anything about themselves. Isn't really a situation that cries out for polite introductions. Not nearly enough gadgets to be Vapulans, and I can't think of anyone besides the Game and Technology that I've seriously annoyed. Well. Lately. But they wouldn't be reading me lists of what Mannie used to do (don't think about it now, Kai, it's not something to dwell on when you're in this sort of mood) if it weren't related to my latest bit of adventure. So. The Game, and very...quarrelsome. Sure, demons aren't very good at getting along, but you'd think that they could maintain a facade of cooperation for an entire _week_.

There's something in the back of my mind trying to figure itself out, but I don't know what it is. Thinking. Not my strong point, but I'll give it a try.

The first time we ran into the Game, they were...efficient. Had things planned out. Distracted me, took me down hard, went after Mannie, and...huh. Ran into a Seneschal and a triad, as I heard it, and two Windies that they'd thought out of the way. So. Second time we ran into the Game, heavy firepower, a place where we couldn't run, just the two of us... and the Boss stepped in to help out.

Thanks, Boss. Sorry I don't deserve it. I'm going to try to make up for the disaster I've created out of what you trusted me to do. Somehow.

So call this time number three. Grabbed me easily enough, humiliating in how easy it was for them to do it, and now I'm...here. Stuck. Here. Still _stuck_ and I can't _move_ and no I will not panic. I am being...reasonable. Channel a little Elohite, Kai. Why are they doing this? Just to get back at me? I'm not _important_ enough to do that. Two bullets in the back of my vessel, that I would have expected, but three Gamesters taking the time to do this? And let's not forget the Shedite playing around back home, no, not going to forget _that_ any time soon, but...deep breaths. Not going to obsess. Trying to _think_.

I wish Mannie were here. Well. No, I don't think it would be a good idea for him to be surrounded by these people, but if he were here he could figure out what to _do_ , and he could set people on fire from a distance.

Which would be very satisfying right now.

Think about something productive. Something else. Anything else at all. Or at least try to _think_. They're not going to all this trouble over _me_ , I'm not worth it to them. So...um. Of course. Mannie. That's the one they really want. Not that they can get him, he's safely in Heaven and going to _stay_ there for a while yet--

\--except that I'm down here, and he...would care. I know he would. Oh.

He hasn't called. Maybe he's so distracted with new work and new friends that he won't even notice, he'll stay safely--no, they'll make sure he notices, won't they? And he can probably still track me down, unless he dropped all his hooks to show he was being good and proper, but I don't _want_ him to have dropped mine, I like being findable, but if he's dropped it that's good because he won't be coming here, but I _want_ to be rescued, and--man. Just _trying_ to think like the Game makes my head hurt.

I could use one of Mannie's flowcharts right now. But, wait, if they want to get him back so badly, why send people like _this_ after him? They're competent enough to get me here, but the Impudite gets twitchy, the Habbalite still hasn't learned to stop getting in reach of me, why go to all this trouble and send _these_ people?

I'm starting to get an idea. I'm not sure if I like it or not. "Hey, Bal," I say, and the Balseraph looks up, I _have_ finally managed to irritate him. "Ever met a Bright Lilim?"

"There's no such thing," he says. "Lilim can't redeem. Their Forces just dissolve if they try."

"You're so sure of this?"

"Have you ever seen one?" Nothing but scorn there. Fine. I can work with that.

"Not yet. But then, there are lots of things I haven't seen that I believe in." Right now I have a deep, personal belief in the existence of Asmodeus, despite never having met him, and let's please keep it that way. "So what would you do if you did meet one?"

"It wouldn't happen. There's no such thing." He flicks the corners of his paper.

"Come on. Humor me. I could go back to the humming." And he could start lying again, but he sighs, and sets down his paper.

"Hypothetically, then, I would assume it was some sort of trick, and deal with the situation accordingly. And turn in a full report afterwards."

"Yeah. What I thought." Turn that over in my head for a while. "Your Boss has a vested interest in everyone thinking Lilim can't redeem. So of course he wouldn't be very happy about anyone who thought they'd seen one who had, would he?" It's weird to think this way. I don't think I want to make a habit of it.

A rustle of paper. He's pretending he's not listening to me again. I'm mostly thinking out loud anyway. "So if you're right, you're trying to grab a Renegade Lilim. Except he's not running around anymore, is he? And you think he's either waiting in a Tether, or he tried to redeem and got ripped apart. But if you thought _that_ you wouldn't bother doing this in the first place, so you think he's still around. Which means you think he didn't even try to redeem." I've nearly lost the train of thought, my mind wants to think about something else entirely, but I'm determined to take this one to the end. "So you think that a Renegade Lilim, selfish as all that, is going to show up here?"

He turns a page. I don't think he finished reading it first. Kai shoots, he scores! Though there's something really weird about trying to make a person _doubt_ something. "Now, what's going to be interesting is if he _does_ show up and he _has_ redeemed like I say, and suddenly all three of you are looking at something your Boss says doesn't exist. Now, I know _my_ Boss, and he'd be perfectly fine with something like that, but what about yours?"

Another page flips. If I weren't so miserable I'd be giggling. This is almost...fun. "I bet that none of you three is in good standing right now, huh? And, hey, this is an _easy_ job for you, just hold onto an Ofanite until the Lilim shows up, and then, someone told you, they'll take care of the rest, and it'll be a good mark for you. Or do you do evil marks, instead of good marks? Never mind, not relevant. Anyway."

"You are a complete fool, angel."

"Yeah, but at least I _know_ it. Self-knowledge. Marvelous thing. And I'm not the one coming from the organization with a reputation for being all twisted around and schemey. Me, I don't do scheming. Can't wrap my head around it. But when even I start thinking something is a little weird, I'd think that you guys would notice too. Maybe you all have some deep, secret information you're not sharing, though. Which would be why this seems like _such_ a setup to me, and you three are all just fine with it."

Okay, so I'm bluffing like crazy and I don't know half of what I'm talking about, but he doesn't know that, does he?

The Balseraph sets the paper aside on the table. He walks over to the place just outside the invisible line, and _looks_ at me. I'm not going to like whatever he says next. "There's no such thing as Bright Lilim," he says. "The Lilim you knew is either still a demon or his Forces dissolved. If it were otherwise he would have called to tell you, wouldn't he? They can't redeem. It's impossible."

"Liar," I say.


	4. In Which I Grapple With Existential Questions

"You missed the meeting." Zif, in the doorway, and then beside me. She seems strange with that horsey face. I thnk of people as what their vessels look like when I meet them first in that form.

"What?" And, yes, it's half an hour past when I was supposed to be there with a report. A report I haven't _finished_ yet, my sentences tangling halfway through. "I'm sorry, I lost track of time, let me get things together..."

"Don't worry," she says. "It's been postponed until later."

"I'm sorry, I'm...not done yet." I can't think in a straight line right now. Every time I try to concentrate my mind hits jagged edges and goes careening off in another direction.

"What's upsetting you?"

"I'm not done with my report, this isn't _working_..."

"But that's not what's bothering you the most."

"I'd really rather not talk about it. I have work to do."

A faint whuffling sigh from her, the first I've heard. "I am concerned for you on an objective level, because when you are upset it is more difficult for you to perform your duties efficiently or at your highest potential. But I am also concerned for you personally, because you are my attuned, and I would like for you to be not only safe, but happy. If I don't know what has caused you to be unhappy, I cannot do anything about it. This makes me unhappy, and in turn begins to affect my other work. So. Would you tell me what's bothering you?"

"You take lessons in this sort of thing from the Boss, don't you." I would like to talk to him about, well, about everything, but it's not a good use of _his_ time.

"We all aspire towards his example in our own way. But you're avoiding the subject." She's not going to leave until I give her an answer she's satisfied with, and I can't concentrate with a Cherub hanging over my shoulder.

"Why am I here?" It's as close as I can come to the subject and still be able to breathe.

"Because you were assigned this office. Because you work for Jean. Because you were redeemed. Because you went Renegade. How far back do you want to trace your steps?"

"Further than that," I say. "What did I ever do to deserve any of this?" They listen when I talk, and when they disagree, I'm not worried that anyone here is trying to push me out of favor. There's a Seraph down by the Bazaar who brings out my favorite blend of coffee when I walk inside, and he has no reason to know me, and I've done nothing particular for him. There are five Bright Lilim who sought me out and told me things they wouldn't tell anyone else, when they'd just met me. I haven't done a thing to deserve any of this. It's like I'm drowning in debt that I'm never going to be able to pay off, I don't even know how much I owe.

"You feel unworthy. Because of what you did before, when you still worked for Vapula. And now you're concerned because you think you've received things you don't deserve, while others have never received what they did earn."

I hadn't even extrapolated that far. Still too self-centered to even _think_ about that, only focusing on what I did, what I ought to have gotten. How can I possibly be an angel when I keep thinking about myself instead of anyone else? "Something like that. I mean, I spent...long enough, being a demon, actively opposing the cause of Heaven, betraying anyone if it would give me an advantage, geasing people into utility or their own failure as benefited _me_ and now I'm...here. Why am I _here_? Why wasn't I ripped apart entirely when I had the audacity to think I could do this at all?"

Zif shakes her head. "You're approaching this from the wrong direction. Let me ask you a question. Do you think Jean was wrong to redeem you? That he was mistaken when he decided you were worth his time?"

"Yes. No! He's not _wrong_ , it's only... I don't know." The Boss knew what I was when he made the decision.

"Another question, then. Does it further the cause of Heaven more for you to be here, working for Lightning, or back working for Vapula?"

"Here. Of course."

"Then regardless of your opinion on whether or not you deserve to be here, your presence is, objectively speaking, a good thing. You ought to treat it as such."

"I'm not arguing _that_ , only...why me? Why not someone else who's done less to hurt people, who's a better person to start with? What did I do to _deserve_ this? There ought to be some sort of, I don't know, some way to pay for what I've done." I'm drowning in debt owed to a thousand people whose names I can't even remember.

"You're not a Judge, to try to work out what anyone else deserves. And as for yourself..." She's silent for a moment. "What has a newborn reliever done, to deserve Heaven? What has a newly-formed demonling done, to deserve Hell? So many have no choice in where they begin, but once there, they perform in such a way as to justify their location. You've _chosen_ something, and it accepted you. It's not a matter of deserving it; it's a matter of justifying it now that you're here."

"And do I never make up for what I've done? Leave it an unpaid debt forever?"

"Maybe," she says. "Or maybe a thousand years from now you'll have done enough good to balance it out. We are not the gods of Egypt, to weigh your deeds on a scale against a feather, and see which way it tips. We work with what we've been given, and move on."

"Forward momentum." If Kai were here, he'd tell me to stop worrying about having missed the first three acts, and to get going with my part in the fourth. "Thank you."

"If you're upset, please let me know. I am always willing to help as best I can." One of her ears flicks back. "But I would like to know what brought on this particular question, if you would be willing to tell me."

"It's nothing important. Only what someone said." And when _will_ I hear back about Kai? If he's off running about with another Renegade... I can understand how his triad must have felt, when they discovered he was missing.

"What did that person say?"

"That I don't. Deserve to be here." And if I remember that _deserving_ it isn't the point, I can almost say that in a single sentence.

Both her ears go flat back against her head, and I can read that much of her body language. "Who said that?"

"Ah. There was a triad of Judgment, the one that watches out for Kai." For his spiritual well-being, in theory, but it seems they're more concerned about him personally than I would have thought Judgment could. "I don't believe they're fond of me, not when it was my fault he was dragged through so much trouble and danger."

"They said that?"

"The Cherub. Dedan." And because I'm not used to seeing Zif looking so _angry_ like this, "I'm sure it's only that they're concerned for Kai too. I wasn't a good influence, not when I should have gone to a Tether instead of running around like that and taking him with me. They have reason to be upset."

"Upset, yes. But no reason to say _that_." Her ears slowly straighten up again. "Mannie, I suggest you take a walk and go look at something you find interesting, for a change of pace. It's not healthy to focus entirely on work, especially when you still need to deal with other things. Once you feel comfortable--and not as soon as you think you'd like to get back to work, mind--you can go back to your report, and reschedule that meeting. Understood?"

"Perfectly."

"Good. Tell me if anyone else says something like that." She pauses in the doorway. "Even angels aren't perfect. Some have their own reasons to be angry, or upset, and you'll remind them of this. But it was _entirely_ inappropriate for a Judge, of all people, to say something like that. Please remember that."

"I'll try."

"Good."

For once someone is telling me to look at something interesting, not to take up a hobby, so I wander the more public corridors of the Halls of Progress, looking in when a door is open to indicate onlookers are welcome. Busy, everyone has something important to do. Even two young relievers, tossing an old CD back and forth in an open space where several corridors meet, pause to ask me if I need them to deliver a message.

I've traveled further from my office than I've gone in here before, to part of the Halls that I'm unfamiliar with. A few curious looks from people as I pass, but no one stops me. It's Heaven, and this isn't one of the restricted areas; I belong here as much as anyone. Two Ofanim spin by me, one on either side, talking about yet another project, and...it is beautiful, isn't it? I could stay here forever. I want to stay here forever. For the first time in my life I want to make something else better, not because it's mine but because... I love it. It's bigger than me, bigger than any project I could ever design, work on, contribute to. This whole place is so much bigger than I could ever be.

I step into a room with a ceiling so far above me I can barely make it out. On either side of the room two generators hum, and all the way up rods and wires and cones, curved glass arranged just so, and at the very top, electricity crackling blue as it leaps in an endless current between two points.

I want to stare at it forever. I want to take it all apart, figure out how it works, and then put it together again so that it works _better_. All the atmosphere in here is charged, I could snap my fingers and send a spark through the air.

My entire life, I've wanted to take raw electricity and bundle it up inside myself, wrap myself around it until it was part of me. I never would have guessed I would end up surrounded by Lightning instead.

A Cherub moves over to where I'm standing, frowns at me. "Did you need something here?" Now that's an unfriendly tone if I've heard one, and I've heard quite a few.

Do I need something. I resist the urge to tell her what I do need. "No," I say. "I'm only looking." Curious enough to try, I look into her eyes, and...what strange Needs, angels have. "I'm sorry that my presence reminds you of something you wanted to forget," I say, and I leave her there. Letting the Geas hook slip away as it forms, the moment I'm out of her line of sight.

I used to count my hooks, check for what would be _useful_ , one more way to claw my way to the top. I have fewer than I ought, spent to pull myself as far out of debt as I could. And more than I'd like still stuck on me, a reminder that somewhere out there too many people can say, "You _owe_ me," and it would be true. And now... I've dropped all the ones I kept on angels, except for the one little hour-hook in Kai, nothing serious, just a way to...find him. If I lose track of him again. It's a bad sign to find an Ofanite sitting still and staring into a mug of coffee. He needed to get out of there, get moving, get his mind off things.

I probably shouldn't have just whisked him away.

A reliever skitters to a halt in front of me, bounces into the air. "What are _you_?" it demands, a tiny thing, it can't be very old. "I've seen Blessed Souls and Kyriotates Mercurians Malakim Ofanim Elohim Cherubim Seraphim even a Menunite, but I haven't seen one of you."

"Bright Lilim." I'm still walking, and it bounces along in the air beside me. Too young to have any idea what it wants to be when it grows up. "There aren't many of us."

"That would be why I haven't seen any before!"

"Ah. Yes." Heading back to my office now, I've done what Zif asked, and I will work diligently on what I'm given to work on until I hear back from people. "Do you, ah, have anything else to do?" It's still hovering over my shoulder.

"No." A tiny unhappy voice to admit that. "Can I help you?"

"Er. Certainly." Not that I have any idea what to do with a helpful reliever. And "helpful reliever" seems to be redundant. I had always vaguely assumed that proto-angels were treated better in Heaven than their corresponding types in Hell, but I hadn't realized they would be little bundles of helpfulness. "So, what's your name?"

"I don't know?" It frowns. "I'm sorry. I went and asked questions! And I looked at things! But I didn't ask what my name was. Do you know?"

"I haven't even found a proper name for myself, yet." The name I was given means lonely, yearning. It's hard to be lonely with a Cherub playing therapist, a supervisor asking for regular reports, Judgment angels showing up every day to ask questions and examine my soul. But I haven't found another name yet, and I'm not sure if it's one of those things where I'm supposed to choose it for myself, or one where I should learn to ask for it.

I used to long for days when everyone would leave me alone, tangle each other up in their plotting, just leave me _be_ so that I could get some work done without wondering who was trying to stab me in the back or sabotage my projects. And now... I leave the door open. I like leaving the door open.

When I sit down at my desk, the reliever darts about the office, inspecting everything without touching. "I can deliver messages! Do you have a message to deliver? I asked a, a Cherub that, and she gave me a message! I delivered it! The message said, Hello, how are you doing? And then I got an _answer_ and brought it back." It perches finally on the back of my chair, looking over my shoulder as I begin to arrange my notes into something closer to proper order. "Or I could find someone for you. If you were looking for someone! I go to people and say, hello, have you seen this person! And if they say yes, I say, thank you! Where is that person? And sometimes it _is_ that person."

"Kai must have been just like you when he was young," I say, and scribble out an apology for missing the meeting. "Or are all relievers like you?"

"I don't know. I haven't asked all of them. Though I could! Who's Kai?"

"A friend of mine. He's down on Earth duty right now." But I don't think a reliever flitting about on Earth asking everyone he sees if they know where Kai has gone would be a good idea. I fold the note and hand it over to the reliever. "Would you take this to Gariel for me? That would be, ah, helpful."

"Oh! Quite!" It speeds out of the office, and then...I'm alone again. With plenty of work to do and some serious catching-up. How could I let myself get so _behind_ because of one stray comment? Nobody's tried to kill me in days, I'm reasonably sure none of my colleagues are plotting my downfall, and I bet I can send that reliever down the Bazaar to pick up a cup of coffee for me. It's time to get down to business.


	5. In Which Not All Lies Are Useful

My left arm is broken. They'll probably heal it again, but it's nothing that's going to kill me so I'm low priority. The Impudite's dragged the Habbalite outside to yell at her, you'd think she would have caught on by now, but...yeah. Self-control of a gerbil. I got her this time before she could read me anything more that I don't want to hear. It was worth it. But I wish my arm would stop hurting. How am I going to punch anyone with that?

I suppose I could beat someone to death with my _own_ arm, but that's not much fun.

The Balseraph's been pointedly ignoring me since they left him in here alone. Three of them, one of me, and I can still manage to find a way to annoy every one of them; Hell's not exactly sending its best and its brightest against me. On the other spoke, it's not like they're trying to kill my vessel. That would _easy_. One gun, bang bang, and I'm waking up next to my Heart in Heaven. I don't want to lose this vessel, but I'd be out of here and not causing problems for anyone else.

Taunting Balseraphs is harder than with Habbalah. The cracks aren't so obvious. They think they're telling the truth, but there's not a lot for me to work with. And he's much better at ignoring me than the other two are.

I wonder who else is out there waiting that I haven't seen yet. No, I'm not going to think about that, because there's no way I can plan for how to deal with the complete unknown. "Don't suppose you have the time?" I ask, but he ignores me. I'm starting to lose track, here. I think... they would have noticed I'm gone by now, right?

I am so. So. Bored. And my arm hurts. And the boring? Still here. Not going anywhere. Nowhere at all. I wonder how long it would take to chip through the chain with my teeth. Don't think that would work; I mean, it's a decent vessel as these things go, but teeth aren't going to last forever against that chain.

Down goes the paper, and it's time for more fun and games with the Balseraph. I don't know what he's going to try today. Repeating the lies he's already made, or making up new ones... And he really believes it, when he says it. That makes it worse. It's as twisted up as Habbalah thinking they're angels, that Balseraphs can keep on lying and think they're still telling the truth every single time.

He stands further away than he used to. "You're not very good at this," he says, but it's conversational, no weight behind it. "In your position I would know exactly what to do, but all you've managed is to shout and bite and pull at your chains. Pitiful."

"I'm bored," I say, "and you're being boring. What game of Let's Pretend do you have planned for this time? It's not like they last, even when you win the game. It never does last." No wonder Mannie talks about entropy, nothing that demons do lasts. It's like they keep building sandcastles too close to the shore, and wondering why the walls fall down

"Fine," he says, "Let's play a game. I'll tell you the truth, and you'll see if you're smart enough to believe it." Half a step closer, if only he'd take one more step past that. "What you hadn't realized before is that you love me, you'd do anything for me, you just want to make me happy."

When he puts it that way, it makes so much sense. It's a little weird to think about, I thought I would have known if that were true, but it's not like he's an Impudite to be Charming me, so everything's fine. "You're right," I say, "but you ought to get out of here."

He steps close enough to touch me, one hand on my shoulder. "Why would I want to do that? Don't you want me around?"

"Well, sure. But, come _on_ , you're hanging out with demons, and who you're working for? He's going to screw you over if you don't get out of here. I'm not _that_ smart, but I know there are things going on beyond the obvious, if you've worked for him any length of time you must know it too." My hands on his collar to pull him close. "Please. Just get out of here. Step outside when they're distracted, run for it. If this gets as messy as it's looking to be, no one will even _notice_ until you're long gone."

"You're a very strange angel," he says, and removes my hands from his shirt. "Where do you think I ought to run to?"

"A Tether, stupid." I don't mean it as an insult, but he's not _listening_ to me, I don't know when someone else might come back in. "Look, it might take some time, but you can work things out and it will _work_ if you try, they will _help_ you there if you ask. You've got to know of at least one angelic Tether near here--"

He slaps me across the face. "You're doing this _wrong_ ," he says, takes a step back. "That's not how it's supposed to happen. You love me."

"Of _course_ I do." He still doesn't get it, how long do I have to explain before someone else comes back in and I lose the chance? I can't hold what he's saying against him, not when he's still this confused. "I just want the best for you. You'll be _better_ there. You can be something _real_ , if you want it and you _try_. Please listen to me, just think about it, okay?"

"You just want to make me happy," he says. Almost a whisper. "You're lying to me, but you wouldn't do that if you really loved me. You're a fool to think that could ever be good for me."

"I know it's dangerous, but so is staying here." And...I don't love him, do I? Not someone who can convince me, even for a few minutes, that everyone's forgotten about me, that nobody will ever find me here. 

He's standing close enough that I could hit him, but it wouldn't be...useful. Satisfying, but not useful. "You don't know that I'm right," I tell him, "but you could."

"Why should I listen to the advice of an idiot like you?" he asks, and then, right, realizes how close he's standing, backpedals until he's halfway across the room. "You wouldn't know the truth if it hit you in the face."

"Anyone can change," I say. "It's just that most people don't. And if you don't even want to... Well. Nothing I can say to change your mind there." Arm's still broken, but if hold the chain up with my right hand, I can pirouette nicely. The chain's too short to let me pace properly or do any of the interesting steps, but spin? I can spin in one place all day long, if I have to. "Want to play another game?"


	6. An Intermission With Judgment And Lightning

What little good mood the interrogation of the Impudite had given to the triad was swept away when they returned to Kai's apartment and found the building in flames, fire trucks working to put out a fire that had already consumed most of the building. A hasty consultation with onlookers and those firefighters who were no longer immediately needed brought up little useful information, save that everyone known to be inside had gotten out safely. 

"Coincidence?" Nomikos asked, the three of them standing far enough from the curious onlookers to have some privacy, while still keeping an eye on the situation. "It seems unlikely."

"There's little means to track him with the Song of Affinity if all his possessions are destroyed," Dedan said unhappily, and shoved his hands into his pockets as if he might find answers there. "And who knows where he's hidden his Heart? The Halls of Creation are seldom willing to reveal their hiding places to Judgment." 

"If this is the work of the enemy, it seems they want to keep him hidden away," Nomikos said. "If they had already killed his vessel and sent him back to his Heart, there would be no reason for this beyond spite, and I don't believe we're dealing with anything so simple as that. I wish the Impudite had known more."

"You believe it is an attempt to force Maharang back into their grasp, then?" Dedan frowned deeply. "To think that a single Lilim could cause so much _trouble_."

"A single Lilim, two Servitors of the Wind, and an Ofanite who only wanted to help," Nomikos said. "The situation is not so easy to blame as you would like to make it." He shrugged, watching the firefighters put out the last of the flames. "We were assigned to watch Kai for signs of weakness, to ensure that he was not, in the absence of his Superior, in danger of heresy or a Fall. Wherever he may be now, it seems likely it is unhealthy for his spiritual well-being. It would fall within the range of our responsibility to remove him from that situation, just as it would for us to bring him back to Heaven if we felt his Earthly assignment were causing him to slide. Is this not true?"

"I concur," said Dedan. "We must find him and bring him back."

Adala rubbed her head. "We are _all_ concerned for him, but we cannot take on a task so large as that without any consultation. This is not the same as escorting a weak Servitor back to Heaven to his Superior, or even bringing an angel in for a trial. I fear that we have already overstepped our boundaries. We must report back and seek guidance."

"Most Holy," said Dedan, "time is of the essence here."

"But to act hastily could be to act wrongly," Adala said firmly. "We will return at once and _urgently_ request guidance."

The other two agreed to this plan, and turned towards the nearest Tether to return to Heaven.

Once an appointment had been made to discuss the matter, the three of them waited in a large waiting room near to where they would be called, and attempted to perform other small administrative tasks in the meantime. None of the three had an easy time of this.

During this time a Cherub not of Judgment approached the triad, and, after confirming that they were indeed the ones she was looking for, laid her ears back flat against her head and said to Dedan:

"You half-witted blithering idiot and sorry excuse for a proper Cherub. I'd expect better of a Judge, of all people. What were you thinking? And I say this with the assumption that you were thinking at all, for I have serious doubts on the matter. Stay away from my attuned, if you can't refrain from being harmful to him."

Dedan's jaw dropped, and he stood up, shaking his mane. "You must be mistaken--"

"Most certainly not." The Cherub, her form that of a quagga, stamped a hoof at him. "Of all the Servitors I would expect such behavior from, Judgment was second to last. I can hardly believe you would come and harass someone newly redeemed, who has already been proven by the Symphony and my Archangel to be worthy of bringing here. It is not _right_ of you."

Dedan growled. "Your _attuned_ has been _corrupting_ a Servitor of Creation who needs no such bad influences--"

"Corrupting? He's doing no such thing, especially while he's here! What call do you have to go places that aren't your business--"

"The well-being of certain people _is_ our business--"

"You haven't been assigned to my attuned, and have no reason to be interfering with his--"

Nomikos and Adala looked to each other, and then went back to their work. Though they did continue to listen, especially as the argument grew louder and more heated. "I'm only glad this is taking place here rather than on the corporeal plane," Nomikos said softly to Adala, after a particularly strident outburst from Dedan defending the need to test the newly-redeemed for weaknesses that might lead them towards temptation. "However, as long as they are occupied, should I get us some popcorn?"

"I do not see how popcorn would benefit this situation," Adala said.

Nomikos shook his head. "Never mind." He went back to working on his notes related to another assignment.

An older reliever, its wings already starting to show traces of feathers about the edges, approached Adala and nodded politely. "Most Holy," it said, "she is ready to see you now. Please follow me." It paused, shook its wings, and leaned in closer to continue in a softer voice. "Are they...supposed to be doing that? It seems irregular. And disruptive."

"Dedan," said Nomikos, as he stood up. "We have been called in, and do not have time for this distraction."

The two Cherubim glared at each other. "We ought to continue this discussion later," said Dedan, and turned to walk away stiffly.

"Agreed," said the other Cherub, and she left the plaza without another word to any of the others who remained there.

The triad entered the office of the Seraph who waited for them. She set aside the files she had been reviewing. "It appears that your assignment, in relation to this Ofanite of Creation, was to watch for signs of potential heresy or weakness, and report on these or take immediate corrective steps as required. Were all of you appraised of this when it began?"

The three of them agreed that yes, this was what they had been told.

"And yet in the last several weeks the three of you have devoted an unusually large amount of time, even to the point of canceling other appointments, to finding and securing this particular Ofanite. It would appear that right now the request you've presented asks for _further_ time spent on this particular angel, to the exclusion of other arranged duties. Is this correct?"

Somewhat more uncomfortably, three of them agreed that yes, this did summarize their recent activities and their submitted request.

"You," said the Judge, affixing each of them in turn with her gaze, "have allowed your personal, subjective emotions to run rampant in this manner. Your duty is not to rescue, nor to pursue, but to examine, evaluate, and come to appropriate conclusions. What conclusion have you come to in this situation?"

Nomikos and Dedan turned to Adala. She opened her mouth, closed it, and opened it again. "We...have concluded that someone ought to rescue Kai?"

"Very well, then. This is a conclusion. And what do you do with this conclusion?" A direct gaze at Nomikos.

"Report them, Most Holy," Nomikos said. "...unless they require immediate action?"

"But this is not immediate, so evidently _immediate_ action was not required. Now you have reported your conclusion. Guardian, what do you do after reporting your conclusion?"

The Cherub shifted on his paws. "We...usually continue on to our next subject of investigation. But--" He silenced under her gaze.

"All of you understood these procedures? There was not, in the decades you worked together, anything which caused you confusion as to the workings of these things? Was there perhaps some event not worthy of a report which threw your instructions into a different light?"

The triad mumbled various things of no great clarity regarding this issue, Adala most briefly.

"In that case," said the Seraph who sat before them, "I may only conclude that the three of you have overstepped your bounds, neglected your duties, and allowed personal preferences to overshadow what you should have been doing. This conclusion was almost in doubt until I heard a disturbance outside while considering the issue."  
 Dedan shuffled his feet, and stared at the floor. Wisely enough, he did not say "She started it," though his thoughts did follow a similar pattern.

"In consequence," said the Judge, "the three of you will be reassigned to different triads, after a period of reflection on the duties you have been neglecting. It is to be hoped that in this manner you all might learn from the experience and not fall into sloth or distraction." Her tone eased slightly. "No doubt all of you had the best intentions in this matter, but good intentions are not sufficient when justice is called for. Any of you who choose to continue a relationship with this angel of Creation may do so on your own time, so long as it does not interfere with your new duties." It waited a moment longer for any protests, but there were none. "Are there any questions?"

"No," said Nomikos, and bowed properly, and left the office.

"No," said Adala, and bowed properly, and left the office.

Dedan lingered, and said, "Most Holy, I am entirely subjective in this, but I am concerned for the safety of that angel."

"Understood," said the Seraph, and its tone was not unkind. "Details of the situation and your investigation have been passed on to appropriate parties, and it will be dealt with. But the Ofanite is not an attuned of yours, is it?"

"No, Most Holy," said the Cherub, and he bowed his head, and padded out of the office as well.


	7. In Which I Am Surprised By Several Things

The reliever brings me another cup of coffee; I'm starting to run out of errands for it to do. This is bad, because it's about to start that conversation again--

"I want to be a Bright Lilim," it chirps at me, hanging over my shoulder on the back of my chair. "That's what I'll be when I fledge!"

"You can't be a Bright Lilim. Why not choose another Choir? Elohite, maybe." I try a different Choir suggestion each time, in case one will click. So far it's rejected Cherub, Malakite, Seraph, Ofanite, and Menunite.

"Nah, that's too boring. I wanna be a Bright Lilim!"

"You can't, kid. The only way to be a Bright Lilim is to start off as a Lilim." It drops down onto my desk in the middle of my notes, and gives me a blank look. "And they're demons."

"That's bad?"

"Right. That's bad."

It wrinkles up its tiny face. "But I wanna be a Bright Lilim!"

"But you can't."

"I can't?"

"No."

"Okay." Back up to over my shoulder on the back of my chair. I finish two more paragraphs on my report before I hear the inevitable, plaintive "But why _not _?"__

__I'm about half an hour from standing in the hallway outside and shouting, "A Force, my kingdom for an Ethereal Force!" It's not that imps and gremlins in Hell couldn't be just as annoying, but those that were got ripped apart by someone before they reached this point of repetition. The combination of chipper helpfulness and the attention span of a goldfish wears on my patience. Jean could graft another Force onto the kid, if I could come up with something to offer in return. It's worth consideration._ _

__Zif walks in to stop beside me. "How are you feeling?"_ _

__"Much better, thank you." Little thoughts in the back of my brain are still fretting over what Kai might be up to, but I can push those back until they don't distract me. It's not much worse than trying to work on a project when I know everyone working for me actively conspires to sabotage the process. "Have you, ah, heard anything about Kai?"_ _

__Zif shakes her head. "Only that he wasn't at home, and a triad showed up, so the matter was turned over to them."_ _

__"Ah. I see." Which means I'm not going to get any information at all if they can help it, knowing the triad in question. If I were allowing myself to follow old behavioral patterns, I could think of several ways to get around this and find the information I need. Trying to be a proper angel is remarkably inconvenient. "You'll let me know if you hear more?"_ _

__"Yes," she says, but doesn't leave. Instead she peers at the reports I'm working on, and at the reliever hanging over my shoulder, who's been quiet and observant since she arrived. I should get visitors in here more often. "You've been doing good work," she says. "But it's been very basic. Do you feel up to working on more complicated projects yet?"_ _

__I touch the back of my head, as if that's where the Ethereal Force was ripped away, an invisible itch. "I haven't been able to identify all of what I, ah, lost. Forgot. But I'd like to work on something more complex than my current tasks. If I find I'm not up to the challenge yet, I'd let my supervisor know."_ _

__"Very well," she says. "I'll pass along your opinion on the matter. And do let me know if anyone else attempts to harass you; they've no cause to be distracting you from your duties."_ _

__"I think I can handle it now," I say, but she's not satisfied with that. "I will let you know."_ _

__"Good," she says, and leaves._ _

__"That's a Cherub," says a small voice by my right ear._ _

__"Yes, it is. You're sure you don't want to be a Cherub when you fledge?"_ _

__"Uh. Maybe. Can I get you more coffee?"_ _

__My mug is still half-full, but I can finish it by the time the reliever flies to the nearest lounge and back. Caffeine seems to be the drug of choice in my department, so who am I to fight the trend? "You do that," I say, and get back to work._ _

__Half an hour later--it must have been distracted on the way--there's a cup of coffee being offered to me. "Thank you," I say, and the reliever settles down behind me again._ _

__"You're very welcome!" it chirps. And then, "That's a Malakite!"_ _

__I really didn't mean to spit coffee over my notes. Those are going to need some re-transcribing. At least I shoved the laptop they gave me well out of the way when I first sat down._ _

__My chair spins. It's handy that way. So I spin around and there's a Malakite in my doorway, all the black feathers in his wings a bit ruffled, as if he's already been annoyed. The one from the triad, whose name I can't remember. The day could hardly get better. At least the Cherub isn't with him. Maybe they're taking turns wandering by to harass me?_ _

__"Kid," I say to the reliever, "would you get me more sugar for my coffee?"_ _

__"Ohhhh. I forgot!" And it zips away, distracted for the next half hour or so. Plenty of time for this Virtue to berate me and be on his way._ _

__"Do you mind if I sit down?" he asks. I point to the chair shoved in the back of the room, the wrong shape for Zif to ever bother with it. "Thank you," he says, and sits down very neatly. So he's here for an _extended_ diatribe. The day just keeps getting better._ _

__"Can I help you?" All of Zif's words held in my mind, and I have no intention of letting him upset me. Not that I'm sure I can help it, if that's what he wants to do. My mind feels tattered at the edges these days._ _

__"Possibly," he says. He sits there for a moment, as if he's collecting his thoughts as well. This is a waste of my time, but I'm not about to turn my back on a Malakite of Judgment, so I sit there and try not to slouch down in my chair. Zif tells me that my attempts to look small and unthreatening when stressed come from an environment where such was safer, but the habit is now inappropriate. It's a hard habit to break, so I settle for not sitting up quite as straight as he does, leaving him with a few centimeters of height to look down on me from. "Maharang--"_ _

__"Please don't call me that." I need to find a new name, if only so that I can leave that one behind. I hate everything that it means. There's no strength in being alone, not here. "Just...call me Mannie. Please." I wish I could remember his name, but when we were introduced I was distracted, and my mind's not quite what it used to be._ _

__"Very well. Then to begin with, Mannie, I ought to apologize for what happened here earlier."_ _

__"...er?" I seem to be saying that a lot lately._ _

__"It was inappropriate," he says. I note that he doesn't claim the statement was incorrect, only...inappropriate. I'll take what I can get. "While I was not the one who, mm, made that particular statement, I do feel partly responsible for it." He stops again, and it's visible on his face how he's composing what he wants to say next. I suppose even Malakim have a lot on their minds. "Dedan has been less than objective about Kai of late. But the problem has been addressed, and it shouldn't come up again."_ _

__I'm not entirely sure how one addresses an angry Cherub who's obsessing over something. Perhaps with a rolled-up newspaper across the nose. I once had a Djinn as a lab assistant who would only get any work done if treated in that manner... But I suspect things work differently here. "Thank you," I say. "For letting me know." Odd for Judgment to talk to me about their internal affairs, but I don't know what Zif said to them when she left to have a chat. Something precise, to the point, and controlled, no doubt. And because it's starting to bother me to not know it when I've been told once, "I'm afraid I've forgotten your name."_ _

__"Nomikos," he says. Fragments of old languages resolve into a translation: lawyer. How appropriate for an angel of Judgment. He shifts in the chair, and still hasn't left, but I'm no longer sure of what he intends. "I'm not here officially," he says, and that's almost reassuring. If Judgment began apologizing to me, I'd really worry about what the world was coming to._ _

__"If so, I appreciate hearing this from you all the more." And now I would like my office to be Malakite-free, thank you very much, but there's no polite way to hint at that._ _

__He fiddles with one of his chains, then folds his hands in front of him as if it were the only way to keep his hands still. "We went looking for Kai," he says abruptly. "And did discover more information. But we've been removed from the investigation, and responsibility for it passed on to someone else."_ _

__"Is he..." I have no idea how to finish the sentence, but Nomikos seems to understand anyway, because he shakes his head._ _

__"Someone needs to find him. Someone will do so, no doubt, but it has been made quite clear it won't be us. We are...too subjective, and too involved in the issue."_ _

__"Is that such a bad thing?" I want more information. I will get no more information unless he chooses to give it to me. I will keep my temper and be polite, ever so polite._ _

__"It is." All the feathers along the edges of his wings ruffle up, and then settle down again slowly. "We are Judges, and to be subjective is to be distracted, and to be imprecise. It is all very well to be fond of someone, but this is no position from which to determine what a person needs, and not what it simply wants. Subjectivity interferes with interpreting what is best for Heaven overall."_ _

__"Trying to be more Elohite?"_ _

__"It would be simpler, sometimes," he says, and I blink at the admission. "But I was made Malakite, and must work with what abilities God has given me." He sighs, and his shoulders relax slightly. "And yet, knowing that the matter is out of my hands, I wish to help. It is such a strange thing, to realize how far from a proper distance I've moved. But after hostility and neutrality and suspicion, all the reactions of those who have something to hide and think us unfair, or nothing to hide but believe we would attempt to create charges of sin where there was none... To have someone welcome our visit every time, and to treat us as friends..." He falls silent again._ _

__"It's nice," I say._ _

__A quirk to his lips. "You are a master of understatement."_ _

__"Well. Yes. But it's...nice. It's comfortable. It's knowing that no matter what he's been through or what you've been doing lately, he's going to...still be like that." If Kai were here right now, he'd be long bored with the conversation and folding my notes into cranes, or balancing all of my pencils on end. "I am, ah, sorry that you were removed from the investigation. I know I would want to find out where he's gone."_ _

__"It's better that someone with less personal involvement handle it." He doesn't sound convinced, and I begin to realize why Kai tried to cook for people. Awkward silences dissolve more easily when one has food and drink to take an interest in. Of course, it could also be that Kai feels obliged, as a Creationer, to keep trying at any art form he's attempted once until he can perform it properly._ _

__I shrug in a noncommittal way. I feel otherwise, but I don't know what sort of trouble Kai's gotten himself into this time either. For all I know he took an urgent call from that stripper saying she needed someone to fill in for a missing dancer. "Did you get any hint on what he's up to? It would be good to know if he left a note."_ _

__The Malakite unclasps his hands, and stands up. "You should leave the situation to others, for much the same reason that we--that I ought to. You're too personally involved to have the necessary perspective."_ _

__He didn't answer my question. "What did you find out?" I stand up, no longer particularly interested in looking unthreatening. I couldn't threaten a Malakite if I wanted to._ _

__"It's really not something you ought to worry about," he says. "Someone else will take care of it." I think he's trying to convince himself as much as he is me._ _

__"Please," I say._ _

__Nomikos stares at me for a moment, then shuts the door to my office, and sits down again. "Understand," he says, "that I can only pass on what information isn't strictly confidential. This is not your responsibility, but that of others with more experience in these things."_ _

__"Understood." I am seated politely, I have every intention of dealing calmly with this._ _

__"As best as we were able to determine, Kai's been taken by agents of the Game--"_ _

__"Because of me." This time it does feel like somebody hit me. He's a sweet little idiot and what the hell is he going to do against the Game? He can barely outthink a reliever, and it's my fault, he never would have crossed their radar if it weren't for me._ _

__"It seems... Well, we couldn't say for sure--"_ _

__"I'm going to rip their Forces off. Track them down, go celestial, drag them there too one way or another, and rip their Forces off. Slowly." I don't know why he's looking at me like this. I haven't even raised my voice. "And then when they're entirely _out_ of Forces to rip off, I will go find someone _else_ who was involved in this and start ripping _those_ Forces off and--"_ _

__"Mannie, please, calm down." He actually sounds alarmed. No idea why. "Don't you think it's a better idea for you to stay here and let _someone else_ handle--"_ _

__"No." My notebook's found its way into my hands, and I begin making notes on how to proceed through this most efficiently. "But thank you for letting me know." I'll have to do this before Zif finds out I'm gone, or she'll worry. Ought to find a babysitter for the reliever. Need to find a way to force any demons involved celestial, though they'll probably jump there if I do. Might be able to borrow a reliquary from, what's her name, Kavita, Creationers tend to have a few of those if no one else does. If I were still working for Vapula I'd have an entire arsenal to play with, but as is, I'll have to come up with something on the fly._ _

__"You realize that this is probably _exactly_ what they want you to do--"_ _

__"Doesn't matter what they want." Their plans won't matter once I've finished shredding them. Which might take some time, but I'm willing to take the time necessary to do this job properly. I'm not sure he's quite grasping the situation. "If you'll excuse me, I need to work on some numbers." I'm full up on Essence right now, but I'll need to allocate it carefully if I don't want to run out, especially one Force down; I need to remember that I don't have the Essence that I usually would._ _

__"You don't even know how to find him!"_ _

__He's _distracting_ me. It's getting annoying. "Of course I can find him." Must remember to account for the Essence needed for the Song I use to track him down, when figuring these things out. The numbers aren't looking good, but I'm sure I can figure out a few more things. Might even be able to call in a few favors on Earth, if I move _fast_ and they haven't taken him far. No doubt they have a Special Weapons Locker here too, but if I requisition anything they'll ask questions, and I don't have the time._ _

__The door opens, and Zif stands there, a distinctly annoyed expression on her face. How odd. "What are you _doing_?" she asks, and I'm about to answer when I realize she's talking to the Malakite, not to me._ _

__"Only passing on information," he says, and stands up. "But I'm glad you're here. _You_ can talk him out of this."_ _

__Zif shakes her head at the two of us. "I don't know precisely what the two of you are doing, but it's putting you in danger, Mannie. Please stop and come speak with me about the matter."_ _

__"No time," and would they just stop distracting me? There's too much to do. "I'll explain later..."_ _

__"Kai's missing," Nomikos tells her, "and Mannie wants to go rescue the Ofanite himself." Why did he have to do that? It'll only worry her, which I was hoping to avoid._ _

__"Out of the question," Zif says. "Mannie, I understand that you're upset, but this isn't your responsibility."_ _

__"Would you stop _saying_ that?" And now I'm shouting. I slam the notebook down on the desk and stand up. "Look. It's simple. If it weren't for me, he wouldn't be in trouble. Therefore it's my responsibility to get him out of trouble. If you two would leave me alone so that I could _plan_ properly, this would go much faster."_ _

__"I remembered the sugar this time," says a small voice at the door, and it's the reliever with a cup of coffee. Its face has twisted up anxiously. "Is everything okay?"_ _

__I have no idea how to answer that._ _

__"Little Helper," says Zif, "this is a matter for adults. But if you go speak with Gariel, he will have something for you to do, and I will make sure Mannie gets his coffee."_ _

__Poor Gariel. Zif passes me the coffee, and now satisfied, the reliever flies away. "You are being unreasonable," Zif continues quietly. She steps into the office and closes the door behind her. "Try to consider this from a more objective direction. It would do no good for either you or Kai if you attempted to rescue him only to be captured by the Game."_ _

__"I have no intention of being caught by the Game." I only need more time to plan, which they are not letting me do. "If you would let me be so that I can figure out how to do this best--"_ _

__The door swings open again, and this time there's a Cherub I've never seen standing there, a great black cat who pauses to see everyone else in the room. "Virtue," he says sternly to Nomikos, "are you not supposed to be reflecting on certain recent errors?"_ _

__"I was, but--" Nomikos gestures helplessly. "Why are you here?"_ _

__"I realized that one I was attuned to was in danger," says the new Cherub, and he gives me a pointed look. "I would assume that Zif is here for the same reason."_ _

__Two Cherubim attuned to me. There is no way I'm sneaking down to Earth in an inconspicuous manner. "I need to find him." Surely they can understand that much. "This is _my_ fault. I need to do something about it."_ _

__"Out of the question," says Zif. "You're projecting your own latent guilt over previous actions onto this single incident, which was entirely out of your control. It will be handled quite properly by..." She stops, and looks to Nomikos. "Who is handling the situation?"_ _

__"I have no idea." The Malakite picks up my notebook, and hands it back to me. "Okay, how about this. We'll go find whoever's in charge of getting Kai out, you can give them your input on the matter, and everyone is happy. How does that sound?"_ _

__"A bad idea," says the new Cherub. "He ought to stay out of this." I ought to get a name from him, if he's attuned to me. And if he is we must have met once, but I don't recall when. Somewhere in the blur right after redemption, when I was staggering through Heaven trying to adjust to the light and the sounds and the hole in my mind where a Force was--no. I have better things to think about._ _

__"It would perhaps be better for his state of mind," Zif allows, "and we'll keep him out of any possible danger."_ _

__"Majority vote," says Nomikos brightly. He pushes me towards the door; my feet aren't working properly for some reason. "Come on, Mannie, let's go find out who's going to be rescuing Kai."_ _

__"Yes," I say, "let's."_ _


	8. In Which Inertia Is Dangerous To Speedy Things

I'm starting to get used to what the Habbalite reads to me. It's awful to hear, but it all blends together after a while, and who's to say how much of it is true? I'm starting to get used to the Impudite telling me about what they're doing to my Role, to my _kids_ , to the whole community center. The whole thing is so far trashed that the new details are nothing but details. I'm even getting used to the lies the Balseraph tells me, realizing I've been believing something horrible.

But what worries me is that I'm starting to get used to being chained to the wall.

"Puppy want a treat?" The Habbalite dangles a pen from her fingertips, maybe an inch outside my reach. There's no point in trying to lunge at it, so I...don't. I can't _go_ anywhere. I'm sitting here with my arms over my knees and I can't get _anywhere_. I can't stop them from doing anything they're doing outside, I can't get back home, I can't do anything. I'm worried about Mannie and I'm a little worried for me, too, and I can't do anything about it.

I gotta learn some Songs. This is just...stupid.

"Puppy doesn't want to play anymore," says the Habbalite. "Pity, that." She puts the pen away inside her jacket. I know the contents of all their pockets, I've been watching where everything goes so that I know how to grab it if I have the chance, but what's the point? I'm not going to have a chance. Even she's staying out of the way this time. Doesn't help that the other two pull her outside any time I make progress on pissing her off.

I wonder if I could gnaw my own wrist off. I mean, they'd have to get close to stop me, and if I got enough damage done I might even get out of this vessel and back to my Heart. Which...would really suck, because it's my last vessel and without the Boss around there's no way I'm getting a new one. I don't want to go into Trauma, I don't want to completely _abandon_ the job I was given, but I'm running out of options.

She crouches down until we're eye level. "Poor little puppy. You know, if you could get that chain off, you could come play. And wouldn't that be fun. Don't you want to try?"

"Shut up." Not the most mature response, or the wittiest. I don't really do witty. That's for people who are smart enough to avoid getting chained up like this in the first place.

"Aw. I think I hurt the puppy's feelings." She's leaning a little forward on her knees, it's almost enough--

I slam up against the end of the chain so hard I fall on my face, but she's out of the way, and laughing. "Can't play unless you get your leash off. Those are the rules of the game."

Back to the wall to wait. Why couldn't they have shot me like any other decent, self-respecting demon would?

"The game is getting old," says the Balseraph. Always with his newspaper. Today's headline turns into thirty-two different words, two of which are properly vile adjectives to apply to the demon reading the paper. "Don't you get tired of that?"

"No," says the Habbalite. "I enjoy it. It's entertaining to watch weak little angels fall down." She smiles at me while she says it.

"As if the world needs another damn Calabite." He turns a page.

"Oh, I find them useful. Point them in the right direction and obstacles melt away. Excellent for getting out of places." I want to stab her in the throat with that pen, poke out her eyes, and write a thousand apologies to the Boss across her with it once her vessel is dead. Another foot closer and I could do it. If _I_ could just get a foot further out...

I'm not going to let myself be tempted. I'm not. I am no damned Calabite to have things decay at my very presence, to take out all my anger on the world around me. I am an Ofanite and I _move_. 

Except for when I don't.

Isn't someone going to notice I'm missing? Surely someone is going to notice I'm gone. Someone.


	9. In Which Subjectivity Is A Concern

I don't know what sort of resources Nomikos can draw on for gathering information; he's more polite than any demon of the Game, and certain responses he receives are more hostile than anyone would dare offer to the Game. Such a strange place Heaven is, in unexpected ways. I can't get close to him while he's asking questions, due to the two Cherubim pacing next to me. Doesn't either of them have another job to do? But one way or another Nomikos finds the information he needs, and we're off to the Halls of Creation, which is, though I'd never say so to Kai, not the most creative title out there as Cathedral-naming conventions go. Even "Halls of Progress" has more snap to it.

Zif keeps trying to peek at my notes when she thinks I'm distracted. The other Cherub, who finally introduced himself as Joseph, grumbles about how I shouldn't be involved in any of this. I don't know why he would care, either way; as I recall Cherubim of Judgment don't take dissonance for harm to their attuned anyway, which seems a cop-out, but necessary enough if the Game--ah, Judgment, that is--needs to track the bad as well as the good.

I'm not sure which category he believes I fall into.

Other places of Heaven have been quiet out of reverence, or attention to work. These halls seem quiet from neglect, their Archangel having been absent for so long. Nomikos leads us down winding hallways past empty rooms, unused equipment, and nearly no people. The occasional blessed soul gives greeting as we move on, a few relievers chirping as they fly by... But these halls are wide enough to accommodate throngs. They must have, once.

Finally a closed door, and a Kyriotate standing in front--floating in front--well, one has a hard time telling what a Kyriotate is doing, but it's definitely in front of the door. I wholeheartedly approve of Kyriotates; compared to Shedim, they're fluffy bundles of love. Multi-part love. "This is a private meeting," it says, manifesting a few mouths to frown at us. "May I direct you elsewhere?"

"It's not official business," says our friendly neighborhood Malakite, and he makes a small bow. "But I think we might assist. Arranging for a rescue operation for an Ofanite who's managed to get in over its head, correct?"

Eyes pop out of the Kyriotate's mass. "All _four_ of you?"

"Well, no." Nomikos puts a hand on my shoulder and steers me gently away from the Cherubim who flank me. "Mannie here would like to contribute to the discussion. I'm only leading the way. Would you mind if the two of us joined the conversation for a few minutes?"

Part of the Kyriotate slides between the cracks of the door, and then after a moment, pulls back out again. "If you really think it would be helpful, go ahead."

"You are _not_ going to let him agree to anything dangerous," says Joseph to Nomikos, in a stern voice that leads me to suspect the Cherub ranks higher than the other angel of Judgment. 

"Don't worry," says Nomikos, and the two of us step inside.

So far I've visited stylish little coffee shops, the comfortable lounges back in the Halls of Progress, and the austere realm of Judgment. This room would make a Servitor of Lust blush. Cushions and tapestries and carpets, a rug that reaches up to nuzzle at my ankles. The lighting hovers in that realm that hints at intimacy without making anything difficult to see. In the center of the room, four angels lounge about, though they seem intent on the conversation at hand. Mercurian, Ofanite, another Kyriotate, and...Malakite. One I recognize, even.

If looks could kill, the glare Kelly gives me as I sit down would be breaking the Pax Dei right now. I can't blame her, seeing how I convinced Kai to ditch her and Jack because I wanted help without dealing with their opinions of me. Not my most honorable moment. If perhaps one of the most fun at the time.

"Sorry to bother you," Nomikos says, dropping gracefully down onto one of the cushions, as if it's the most natural environment for a Malakite of Judgment to find himself in. I take a seat near him, making sure he's between Kelly and me. "Please, do continue, and we'll lend what assistance we can."

"I heard you were supposed to be reflecting on your bad behavior," Kelly says to Nomikos, "not continuing in it." I believe this is the Malakite equivalent of "My computer is faster than yours is."

Nomikos somehow manages to resist saying, "At least I still have a vessel." I wouldn't have been able to do the same, in his situation.

"Hush," says the Kyriotate. "We're trying to be expedient here. Once we find Kai, the situation will change depending on where they're holding it."

"If it's anywhere isolated, it would be easiest to torch the whole place," Kelly says. "One sufficiently large explosion and he's kicked back to his Heart, problem solved."

"You can't just kill his vessel," I protest.

"Why not? That's more efficient than getting embroiled in who knows what kind of mess, and it's not like vessel-death is _that_ hard to get over," Kelly says.

"I suppose you'd know by now with all the experience you've had," I say, and Kelly starts to stand up. The Mercurian beside her pulls her back down.

The inner wheels of the Ofanite spin slowly inside its rim. "It's difficult to plan much of use until we know where it's being kept. Our first priority should be discovering that. By the time we do track it down, all sorts of things may have changed. Not that its Heart was much use in giving us any information. They knew better than to put him in a place with useful visual clues."

"I can find him." All of them staring at me now. If only the cushion I'm on were soft enough to let me sink through the floor entirely. It's about to get worse. "Song of Affinity. I can lead anyone you send along straight to him, if you'll let me."

"You have something of his? This is quite useful. We though that route was closed when his apartment was burned," says the Kyriotate. All of Kai's toys, up in flames... I wonder what else they've done to the kid. Entirely unfair. I'm trying to distract myself, am I not? "But there's no need for you to come along, if you let us borrow it for long enough that someone else can use that Song."

Yes. Distinctly awkward. "It's. Ah." All of them still staring at me. "I kept...one Geas hook. Just the one. So that I could find him, if I needed to." Zif says honesty towards one's peers is good for the soul, but nothing in their expressions makes me feel good. "I didn't mean... I only wanted to be able to find him again."

"You shouldn't have," says Kelly. I've worked with less corrosive acid than her voice.

"No. But it's a good thing I did." I'm surprised my hands aren't shaking. I'd like to spend several quiet minutes working out flow-charts on my notebook until I can think straight again. "So I need to come along to help."

"Oh, the Cherubim aren't going to like this," Nomikos says.

A brief buzz as three people talk over each other at once, and then the others are discussing plans, figuring out...strategy. I don't really do strategy, or tactics. I'm better at schematics.

"This is your fault," says Kelly.

"I know."

It's not enough to satisfy her. I'm not sure she'll ever let me make up for this. But she has her Malakite's pride to satisfy on contributing to the discussion, so she leaves off on glaring at me to suggest various plans, most of them centering around explosions. One-track mind, that one. I wish she'd shift the track away from me for a while.

At yet another suggestion involving explosives, the Kyriotate sighs irritably through several mouths. "It's not the habit of the Game to locate themselves in an isolated area where we can simply blow things up and be done," it says. "They're more likely to be in the basement of a children's hospital, or the back room of a homeless shelter. We need to work on the assumption that this will have to be fast as possible, reasonably subtle, and working around innocent bystanders."

"Locate, swing in with a silenced gun, and then run?" Kelly suggests, though she seems disappointed that the operation doesn't look to involve any explosions.

I turn to Nomikos. "Am I the only one here who's bothered by the idea of a rescue operation where Plan A starts with shooting the hostage?"

"Mm, well. Sometimes it's the best choice of a list of bad ones." He stands up, and nods to the others. "I'm not sure we can contribute more at this point. Let us know when you've come to a decision and need to start tracking." And with an iron grip on my arm, he hauls me up and back out of the room.

"I could have helped," I say, as he drags me along past Zif and Joseph. "I'm not stupid."

"No, but you're too involved," the Malakite says. His grip loosens slightly, but he's not letting go of me yet. "You can't get any proper perspective on the matter."

"So on the one hand everyone's telling me to care about people and not be so wrapped up in myself, and on the other hand it's a bad idea when I try to do so?" If I'm not in there to help them plan, they might well be doing it _wrong_ , and how can I tell when I'm out here?

"Excuse us a moment," Nomikos says, and pulls me off into one of the great silent rooms in these halls. This one holds a forge, anvil, bellows, all the workings for a proper blacksmith and no one here to work them. When I was first made these sorts of things were still useful, and I spent a year or two learning the basics, finding out how delicate of pieces you could make with such bulky equipment as this. Obsolete knowledge lingering in the back of my mind.

"This is the part where you tell me I'm being unreasonable," I say. A Malakite wouldn't understand what vessel-death is like; they bounce right back, unconcerned with the whole affair.

"Let me tell you about Judgment," Nomikos says. He leans back against the anvil, his chains clinking lightly against the metal. "Now, most of the time you're dealing with pleasant people who have done nothing wrong, or angry, defensive people who have something to hide. This is _simple_. The difficult part comes when you're dealing with angry, defensive people who have done nothing wrong, or pleasant people who _have_. If I let my emotional reactions to either of these sway me too much, I'm in danger of judging poorly."

"Very Elohite."

"And it's very Malakite to keep a promise, and very Cherub to care for one's friends, and very Ofanite to get places quickly, but this doesn't prevent such things from being an admirable trait for anyone else, does it?" He holds up a hand. "Let me finish. Now, the reason they broke up my triad was because all of us had become so, mm, fond of Kai, that we could no longer judge him effectively. What if he _had_ starting sliding into dissonance,? We might have excused it where we wouldn't have for anyone else, because we like him and know he means well. But in doing so we would have put him in even more danger, to not get him the help that he needed."

"Help meaning being hauled back to Heaven and put on trial."

"Maybe. Or maybe only a stern warning and sending him to a Tether to work the dissonance off. It depends." Nomikos lets out a long, slow breath. "Mannie, I know that it's a popular sport to paint Judgment as the bad guys, but we're trying to _help_. Not always the individual, no, but overall, we're trying to make things better, just as much as, as Flowers or Trade or Lightning. One way that we can help is to see things that someone's friends might not see, and to be able to see _through_ what a person's enemies would like to believe."

"And you think I'm being...subjective."

"I could hardly blame you for it," he says, and offers me an actual smile. "Let me put it this way. Those who took Kai expect you to come running to his rescue, correct?"

"Of course. I mean, of course I _would_ , but--"

"Right. Which means they're prepared for that. Now, if we take out Kai's vessel... this isn't a _good_ thing, no, but it would get him out of the situation, and you wouldn't be tempted to get any closer than necessary. Which makes it easier to protect you from whatever they had in mind." Black feathers ruffle along his wings, lay back down slowly; it seems to mean about the same thing as when a Balseraph's wings start twitching, that it's just thought of something disconcerting. "And what would Kai think if the Game caught you because you were trying to rescue him?"

The look on his face after he stabbed Kelly, and her a Malakite able to jump right back... "He'd hate himself for it." And think it was his fault, for all that he couldn't help it. I can't do that to him. But I need to _find_ him, and if I let everyone else do it without me, they might screw it up. "So I'll...help find him. And stay out of the way. And let everyone else do whatever it is they have planned." Up until they start messing up, at least, at which point I can make sure things _work_.

"Good." He steers me back to Zif and Joseph. They're waiting in the hall, Joseph grumpy and Zif the model of objective serenity. I'm pushed around a lot of late. "I would be happier accompanying you all, if I may be candid," Nomikos says, "but I'm supposed to be reflecting, and would have a hard time explaining to my superiors how that meshes with participating in a raid Earth-side. Please let me know how everything turns out." So formal, and yet even I can hear what he means, behind his words. I think... I think he feels much the same way I would right now, if I had to wait in Heaven for news of this.

"It would be best if you went now," says Joseph. And him I don't like much at all. How long are they going to keep two Cherubim attuned to me anyway? It's not as if I'm about to run off and do anything stupid.

...aside from this whole excursion, true, but I like it here. So far as I know, nobody is trying to take credit for work I've done, they don't insist I do my work on the computer, and the clock on my wall isn't counting down to a deadline. Two Cherubim seems like overkill. If, ah, possibly very convenient, shortly.

Nomikos bows. "Certainly, Guardian." Then he's off striding away through empty halls until the last black blot of his wings rounds the corner.

"I don't like any of this plan," says Joseph, "but if everyone else is dead-set on it, well, I'll assist as best I can. But my priority has to be his safety." He doesn't look at me when he says that. I'm really feeling the affection.

The Kyriotate from the door oozes towards us. "They're ready to go," one of its mouths says.

About time.


	10. In Which I Get To Hit Someone

Kelly's new vessel is of a woman in her late twenties, a figure somewhere between athletic and statuesque, and not what I would call inconspicuous. Apparently she made up to her Superior. I hope she made up in full; having the Malakite of the group nervous about losing her vessel could be inconvenient. The Ofanite's form is a thin, bright-eyed man, dressed for business with a white shirt and tie. And the Mercurian, an elegant woman in celestial form, is a chubby teenager. They've been following my lead for a drive where the three cars employed never took the same route, though we've all ended up here together.

Zif and I are the same as always. Joseph's wearing the body of a stocky middle-aged man, looking as annoyed as he did back in Heaven. The Kyriotate, as near as I can figure, is currently two hamsters, two pigeons, and a young cat. What a rescue party we are. I'd feel safer with a team of--well, no, I wouldn't feel safer with any of my old coworkers or anything Vapulan at my back, not unless I'd designed the tech myself. And even then only if no one else had touched it since I finished.

I've followed this Song to old enemies before, to people who owed me and hated me for it, or to someone indifferent to the whole matter and annoyed to have the debt called in. Half my mind tries to interpret the tug as a favor waiting to be called in, and the other half of my mind is beating that half over the head with something blunt and reminding me that this is Kai we're looking for.

I need to find Zif's office and have a long talk with her when this is over. She probably has a couch in there. It might be nice to lie down on a couch and be angelically honest at her. It would be a change of pace. Not that my life has had a chance to fall into monotony and routine, of late.

"How far now?" They put me in the front seat of the car Zif is driving, but the Mercurian keeps leaning past Joseph to hang over my shoulder from the back seat. "Or do we need to triangulate more?"

"Less than three hundred meters, and slightly downwards." Close enough that I'd be out of the car already if I didn't have two Cherubim sitting this near to me. To the hamster riding on my shoulder, "Is that enough information that you can pinpoint the place?" We're driving through a dingy part of town, not quite a slum but full of high-occupancy buildings that haven't been painted recently. At this time of day the street is nearly empty, convenient to avoid onlookers but not much for keeping us from standing out. They won't let me get any closer than this, not without knowing who's watching. I suspect we've been spotted already, but every time I point this out Zif only tells me there's no reason to take unnecessary risks.

The hamster squeaks in the affirmative. Zif slows the car, and the Mercurian jumps out. She gives us a cheery wave, and goes strolling down the street as if to meet a friend. Lucky her. Gets to go save the day, while I get to hide out somewhere else with two Cherubim watching me as if I'm about to...well. As if I'm about to do any of the things I keep considering doing.

I still can't believe they want to _shoot_ him. I never gave much thought to angelic rescue squads before, but when I did I didn't imagine them taking out the person they were rescuing.

I have a hard time remembering what I thought about angels. That was such a recent change, but it's like one of those pictures where a scramble of odd blots suddenly looks like a proper picture, and once you've seen it that way you can't stop seeing the picture that was there all along.

We're moving further away from Kai now. "Zif--"

"We're moving you to someplace _safe_ ," she says. "If there were a Tether nearby, we'd be taking you back. As it is, we'll remain here until they're finished, and then assist them in leaving. Dora will let us know if the situation changes." The hamster squeaks its affirmation.

"How far away is safe?" The pull towards that hook stretches thinner the further we go. Sooner or later the rubber band will snap. 

Zif swings the car into a parking garage, punches herself a ticket on the way in. "Not too public," she says, "and not too far."

The space she stops in is at the roof. I climb out of the car before the engine's off. Dora-hamster peers out of my jacket pocket, the place where I used to keep an artifact that might or might not have been made by Eli. I wish I'd brought the paper crane; it would make me feel...not safer, but like everything would turn out well. I want to find these people, pull their Forces off, _hurt_ them for what they've done to Kai, but...two Cherubim. They're not letting me go anywhere.

The parking garage is quiet, even with the way it echoes every footstep. Zif and Joseph take up positions facing either direction that cars could approach. There's nothing inconspicuous about the way they stand and watch, but maybe that's just as well.

I hate the waiting. I hate not having any influence on what's happening next. I hate not knowing, not doing, not anything at all but waiting. And horribly, selfishly, I hate that it isn't going to be me who rescues him. At least I won't be the one shooting him.

Dora-hamster scrambles up my jacket to sit by my ear.

_Hello, Mannie_ , says the voice in my head, and I twitch. I've never quite gotten used to the Ethereal Song of Tongues, especially the uncomfortable way it crawls in the back corners of my mind.

_Hello, Dora. What are you doing in here?_ I politely suppress the additional "And please get the Hell out again."

_Progress reports. I thought you'd like to know how things are going, so that you don't need to worry. I have all sorts of views of the situation, so fret not. Two of three heading in the front door, third watching around the back. No surveillance noted yet, but then, it can be hard to tell. I'm winging in to take a closer look._

"Dora's keeping us updated?" Zif asks, and I nod. "Good. Let us know if the situation changes in an unusual manner."

_So. Anything unusual?_

_Everyone's inside. I'll see if I can get in through any of the back windows; there's at least one that's smashed. Or, hey, I can open the door. Hi, kid..._ It goes silent for a moment, presumably dealing with host-juggling to get inside the building. _Kid shouldn't be wandering around without supervision, not at this age. Someone walking down the street in front, doesn't look like anyone I need to worry about yet, but, hey, heading inside._ A longer pause, until I'm starting to pace in tight circles around the car, dodging Zif on one side and Joseph on the other. _I still don't hear anything from downstairs. I'll look for the stairs and follow down. Hey, that's--_

"That's _what_?" Joseph looks at me. "I think the Song ran out. Middle of a sentence." And no doubt any minute now the Kyriotate will be back in my head, with more details.

But it isn't.

"I need to know what's going on. Where _is_ it?"

"Perhaps it's distracted?" Zif offers.

"It's a Kyriotate. How do you _distract_ a Kyriotate?" Grab one of its hosts and force it to work on preventing damage there, provide a situation where it needs all its Essence to solve a problem. The hamster wanders about on my shoulders, showing no signs of having anything more than animal intelligence to it. Dora is pulling its Forces elsewhere. I pick it up and set it down on the hood of the car. "Fuck _this_."

I haven't half the speed Kai could manage in a situation like this, but I do have the advantage of surprise. I'm all the way to the stairs before they follow. I'll have to apologize to Zif at length, but I can't just _wait_ here. Over the railing and down the stairs, out the door to the ground floor and off towards the street. The two of them are gaining on me, Joseph shouts something I can't make out with a door between us, but I need to _know_. I need to do something.

Out onto the street, but before I can get past the sidewalk someone grabs my wrist, and I'm swung about to face a man who I don't know, though I can guess certain affiliations from the circumstances. "Time to come home," he says, a nasty grin.

"Tell _them_ that," I say, and as two angry Cherubim slam into him, he loses hold of my wrist, and I'm off across the street, no traffic to slow me down. Stupid, but I can't count on everyone being stupid. I don't know who else is waiting for me; Zif and Joseph will be distracted for a while, especially if they keep things discreet. Might be too late for that. I can't find it in myself to care.

Down the block, around the corner. I slow to a brisk walk, trying to keep an eye out for signs of new danger, but I don't see anyone else on the street. I pass the door to the building the first time, turn back when I realize that's the only way to continue in the direction I'm being pulled. 

The door's unlocked. Convenient. I know this is a trap, but then, I knew this whole situation was from the first time I calmed down enough to think it through. Well. I'll find out what they have planned for me, and then I can show them what I have planned for them.

A jangle of disturbance rings from down the hallway, around a corner where a faded sign points to "Offices." I follow it to find a bulky man with his arms wrapped around a child, maybe five years old, who kicks viciously in his arms but doesn't bother to make a sound. The man stares at me as I approach, something slimy creeping about behind his eyes. "About time you showed," he says, and slams the child against the wall. More disturbance rattling the air, and Dora-child struggles in his arms. "We were starting to wonder if you'd decided to keep running instead." No sign of Kelly or the others, and the tug of Kai's hook still pulls me forward. No vessel death for him yet. 

"And yet here I am." I have more to lose than the Shedite does, but it can't kill my vessel without losing me. I'd rather not kill the human it's riding if I can help it, but I have more important things to worry about than one potential death. Besides, once we've cleaned this up I can heal any damage I do. Why didn't anyone give me a _gun_? More disturbance rattling from further ahead, and that must be them.

The man slams Dora-child into the wall. The jangles are starting to overlap, enough noise to let Zif and Joseph know something is going on here. He doesn't seem to notice when the child bites at his arms hard enough to draw blood. "And here we are. How would you like to play this game?" He's waiting for me to try to attack, pit my pathetic corporeal strength against his, and with confidence like that no doubt there's another demon waiting to help the moment I try that move, or he'd not be paying so little attention to the Kyriotate struggling in his arms. Dora must have already tried to force its way into the Shedite's host as well, but it seems that was no use.

I don't want to play the game they've prepared for me; I know how weak I am when in this body. I drop a note of Essence, and with it my vessel. I'll aid Dora later; it can take care of itself, especially once this demon is distracted.

The man's jaw drops, he stands there clutching the child and staring at who I am. I don't believe it expected me to have made it this far, to show myself Bright Lilim. In celestial form, I walk through the two of them and on towards the tug of that hook.

Through the door to the basement stairs; the disturbance behind me, almost lost in the noise from what lies ahead, could be Dora's host or the Shedite's being mangled, or it could be the Shedite pulling free from the human it rides to follow me. If it's the former, Zif and Joseph will aid Dora when they get close; if the latter, I'd best keep moving. I head down the dark stairs to another door. This one was locked, once, but there are only broken remains to the doorknob now. No matter; in this form I can walk through it.

A single bare bulb hangs in the ceiling, swinging wildly, and in the corner a lamp's been knocked on its side. Kelly is down on the ground with someone beneath her, her knife flashing; one demon I can discount. The Ofanite and Mercurian tangled up with two others; two more to be ignored for the moment. In the back of the room, a bare stretch of floor and...Kai, one arm chained to the wall and another dangling awkwardly at his side, straining desperately against the chain as if he could join into the fray by sheer force of will. A red patch on his chest shows where a bullet hit, not the right place to kill the vessel, and his eyes wear the distant confusion of someone trying to convince himself that surely his friends didn't do that.

Dreadful touch lunging at me, and Nomikos was right, I shouldn't have let myself be distracted by personal matters. The Shedite has shaken off the surprise, abandoned its human to lurch towards me, all its slimy bits moving at different speeds in a horrible mass. I hated them in Hell, and I continue to hate them here, disgusting creatures that live only to corrupt. It lashes out at me, tentacles forming from the muck, and I ought to be terrified, I ought to be _running_ , but I...don't have the time. Other things to worry about. So I slip out of the way of that thing, spread my wings, and play the game I want to play.

I can't fight well, not on the corporeal plane. I make no secret of it. But it's their mistake if people choose to believe I can't hold my own when celestial. 

My hands rip through the Shedite, and it screams at me, attacks more furiously than its original careless pawing. Where it manages to hit its touch burns, and I don't want to lose Forces again--but I have work to do. Both my hands dig into the center of the thing, teeth appear about my hands to bite at me, but I tear away bits of its mass, pull it one way and another into confusion. 

A bright tumultuous mass tumbles down the stairs and joins me, Dora lending its claws and hands to the work before us. "Not so tough when you're not corrupting someone's soul, are you?" one of its mouths snarl, and it's gratifying that someone else is taking this as personally as I am. Though it's distracting when another of Dora's mouths simultaneously makes disgusted noises at having to _touch_ this thing.

Through Shedite and Kyriotate I see the Mercurian gesture, and a cube of quartz appears in the air above the demon she's been tangling with, slams down to the ground with suddenly bloodier vessel beneath it. Satisfying. I shall have to ask Kai if he knows that trick.

Mouths form all along the Shedite's body, shrieking as the two of us methodically pull it apart. "You can't run forever," it cries to me, "we will _find_ you." Another of its mouths begins to chant, calling for the help of its Demon Prince. 

"I'm not running." Another handful of goop, duck a tentacle that lashes out unevenly towards my face. "And now that you've found me, what do you expect to do with me?" How long does it take to call Asmodeus into a room full of angels, and what would he do once he arrived? I'd rather not find out.

The door to the basement, already battered, dissolves into fragments. A woman steps through the door, surveys the situation, her face blanking for a moment as she sees me. Then the moment is over, she drops her vessel to show her true form, leathery wings spreading behind her. She sneers at me and raises one red hand. "Burn."

In corporeal form, it would be a slam of power into my body, leaving me frayed and bloody. In celestial form it's worse, the power of it ripping into my soul. Forces frayed after changing who I am shudder under it, and I can't help the step back. I don't want to lose Forces again. I'm tired of losing who I am, ripping away bits of my soul like so many lost memories. But I can't let the Shedite finish its call, or we're all in trouble.

Zif steps through the doorway behind the Calabite, vessel falling away to leave her a winged quagga with dainty hooves stepping towards us. Her ears point sharply forward, and then the Shedite's voices break off as blue lightning crackles around it, electricity in celestial form. Beautiful, it's beautiful, I can only hope some day I can do the same. But right now there's someone dangerous contend with. Let Zif and Dora finish off the Shedite. I throw myself at the Calabite, and hope she's one of the sort that's so focused on the corporeal realm she barely remembers how to fight in this form.

No such luck, despite the odds being in my favor on that guess. She claws me across the chest, tangles me up in the fight until I no longer remember which way gravity points, only where she is in front of me. "Burn," she hisses again, and this time I throw it back at her, watch her face twist as she spins her resonance around the room until it can land somewhere again. Dora yelps behind me, and I didn't mean for _that_ to happen, but I have urgent matters at hand, foot, throat.

"I will drag you back to Hell to face my Master," she whispers, hands around my throat, that it's only symbolic in this form is no help in pushing her away. "He will rip your Forces apart and toss what little is left into a hole in the ground for Shedim to play with, where no one can see you and everyone can hear you scream." We've fallen halfway through a basement wall, I'm sure I've damaged her, but I can feel myself trying to unravel beneath her attacks. Not too far away, gunshots, someone's picked up one of those again, why couldn't they have given me one when it would have done some good? 

That tug I've been following for hours wavers, and suddenly it's not pulling in any direction anymore, only telling me he's...not here. I could almost laugh at the timing, and the Calabite reaches back to hit me again--

A giant winged cat, tumbling her further away from me, teeth and claws ripping at the Calabite's form. A moment later Zif is there, a glance at me to see the extent of my injuries, and then hooves join the claws in their attack. The two of them have the Calabite trapped, and her screams have no effect as they begin to rip her apart.

I'm superfluous here. I stagger through the wall into the room, try not to see the body crumpled against the wall, still chained. Only a vessel. It's only a vessel. He's lost them before. Kelly looks up from a body no longer moving beneath her, bright wet knife matching her bright smile.

A demon, I don't know what this one is, gapes up at me. Something he's never seen before, and I've just returned while the Calabite has not. Foolish little thing, I couldn't rip it to shreds in such a small amount of time, much as I'd like to. It's reflex to read the Needs in his eyes.

"Go," I say, though I could still call out a Song of Fire to send him screaming as he went. "But you'll owe me."

He runs, and I feel the hook settle into place. I can find that one at my leisure, discuss matters at a time of my own choosing. The Shedite has disappeared, run back to its Heart with a Force or two fewer and a shameful tale for its Prince, and Dora is off collecting its hosts and repairing any damage done.

"What a mess," says the Mercurian, standing up from the remains of the demon it was working on with the Ofanite. "We'd better call someone in for cleanup before anyone discovers this."

"Or we could leave the mess, and let them wonder," says Kelly. She smiles at me, and I don't know if it's out of sheer pleasure from the fight on her part, or because of what I did. I'll assume the former until I hear otherwise.

"There's wondering, and then there's a big mess that will leave people frightened to come out at night," says a small voice from the stairs, and Dora-child walks into the room cautiously. The amount of blood I see suggests that the Kyriotate never left that host. "We'll have someone clean this up. There's someone I can call..." The child smiles. "The Cherubim are having fun. I'm glad I can join them in it. But I think they're going to be angry at you when they're done, Gifter. We'd best be moving before the demon that got away starts calling in someone big."

The Kyriotate Needs healing for its host before it leaves the child. I sing the little human back to health, see the hook form, and let it dissolve away. With everything that people keep giving me, how could I hold them in debt for what little I can do to repay them? And yet I always know what they Need so that I can give as much as I can...

A strange thought. I'll have to examine it later.

Zif and Joseph step through the wall together, and it's the first time I've seen Joseph happy. They shake on their vessels at the same moment, and exchange a private look I can't interpret. "That was irresponsible of you," Zif says, not quite a rebuke. "Please don't do that again. We will have to discuss the matter when we return."

"Understood," I say, and wrap up the hook on that demon where I store all the other debts owed to me. I have all the time in the world to collect.


	11. In Which The To-Do List Is Addressed

I made a list of what to do when I got back, complete with annotations for various contingencies. The first step progresses easiliy; my apologies to Zif and Joseph are taken far more cheerfully than I'd hoped. Are all angels in such a good mood after they've had a chance to attack demons? Perhaps not those of Flowers. Zif has been making comments about setting up surveillance cameras on my Heart to make sure she knows where I am if I ever try this again, but I don't think she's...quite serious. It's hard to tell when she makes all of her statements so blandly. No doubt there will be discussions of the matter later, but for now she seems content to let me offer the most sincere apologies that I can offer. I don't regret my actions, only that what I did alarmed her.

I do regret that two demons went down without losing a single Force. Maybe three. I wanted to express my opinion on the matter to all of them personally, and much as I realize that wouldn't have been practical...well. It would have been satisfying.

One item checked off the final, revised list.

Back at my office I write out two notes for the reliever to deliver, and make sure I mark each with name, Superior, Choir, and likely destination, as I don't trust this helpful little idiot to remember two things at once. Another item off the list. By the time I've finished scanning all of my coffee-drenched notes into the laptop they gave me (and taking a moment to admire the scanner that can translate my scrawl to proper text, even through the stains), another reliever is back with a reply from Gariel. That finishes everything but the last line to be crossed off.

Two notes of Essence; I'd planned on asking for a loan if I'd been out at this point, but I have enough to manage. As the tug springs up to show me the way, I tuck my laptop under my arm, and take along one notebook. It wouldn't do to get behind on my work because of...personal matters.

The Halls of Creation are as empty as before, and the few people who do pass me don't question my presence there. I know that the geography of Heaven is strange, that of Cathedrals even more so, but it startles me when I find this Song I've used so many times before is working... differently. Instead of pulling me always in a straight line, it swings and tugs to send me around corners and through doors, ever closer to the goal. Or maybe it's that the Cathedral is spinning around me at its leisure, lining up my route with nothing better to do with its time, having so few people to focus on. I would believe that of a place designed by the Archangel of Creation.

At last the tug pulls me up a wrought iron spiral staircase, up steps designed in a hundred different pictures and patterns. At the top of the stairs waits a wooden archway carved with flames, and inside... a small room, no larger than my office, with a single window that opens out towards the panorama of Heaven.

In the center of the room a Heart, a glowing sphere to call someone home, and around it floats an Ofanite. I've seen Ofanim of all sorts, interlocking wheels and circles that spiral inside themselves, fiery gears that churn against each other. This one is a single solid ring, its flames low, spinning slowly around the Heart.

A polite cough draws my attention to the other occupant of the room: an Elohite I'd been distracted enough to not see when I stepped into the doorway. "You're a friend?" it asks.

The term seems inadequate, for all that I'd never had reason to use it with anyone before. "Something like that. And you?"

"It would be comforted, on waking, to know that someone had been here to watch," says the Elohite. It stops for a moment, as if composing its next words. "I haven't seen Kai in decades. But I believe it would consider me a friend."

"You serve Creation?" This Elohite is everything I would have imagined one to be, before I'd had a chance to meet any up close. Entirely closed off and precise in its words, pale genderless face so smooth it barely has features for one to recall.

"No," says the Elohite. Another pause. "Kai knew me before I was as I am now, if briefly. It helped me then, when I did not deserve such help."

"You were--"

"Habbalite. Yes." Such a blank look and tone it must be suppressing some reaction. "It has been some time. I am told I am...overcompensating. But I cannot forget what I was. And, subjective though it may be, I am...grateful."

"I'll be here. You have other duties to attend to?"

"Yes," says the Elohite, and it moves away down the stairs, no need in its mind to waste time on farewells. I would think it unfeeling, but that wasn't the reaction of someone with no strong opinions. I may be as subjective as I like, so long as I remember to behave with some approximation of what becomes an angel, and though I've wished sometimes for the control of an Elohite, I'm glad I don't require it.

I sit down with by back to the wall below the window, and open up my laptop. I have work to do.

My laptop chimes at me every hour, an addition from Gariel to remind me not to work forever. Every hour I look up, and see that nothing has changed.

The room is quiet. A place this high should have wind scudding by the window, but weather hasn't chosen to work that way here. Typing doesn't even clack the way I'm used to, and the loudest sound is when I stop to sketch out my thoughts in the notebook until the problem has become clear enough to add to the file I'm working on.

Seven hours after I've arrived, a reliever flies in through the window, and proffers a note. "You've been very hard to find," it says; it's the same one that was hanging over my shoulder before. "But I found you anyway!"

The note is from Nomikos. Brief, polite, to the point. I would expect no less from him. I find it strange when people thank me for what I've done, and I've left no hook in them. "Thank you for your help," I say, and turn back to my work. I have no desire for more company.

"You were _hard_ to find," says the reliever, settling down on my shoulder. "I had to ask lots and lots of people where you were, and then I had to look, and look, and look, and ask, and look. And then it was weird because some people use one name for you, and some people use another. Aren't you only supposed to have one name? It isn't fair if you have two and I don't have any, yet."

"People call me Mannie. I haven't found a real name yet. And the other one is...an old one. I'm not using it anymore."

"Oh. Okay." It peers over at my screen, but doesn't ask any picky questions, only watches.

The hour chimes, and I look up. Flames burning low, a spin so slow it's nearly a drift in a breeze that isn't here. "It's not moving," says a small voice on my shoulder. It's been so quiet I had forgotten it was still there. "Aren't Ofanim supposed to move?"

"He's in Trauma. That's what happens when you lose a vessel, down on Earth. Except for Malakim. He'll wake up in a bit." He couldn't possibly drift there forever. It's not right to see him like this, so...still.

"Oh. Okay." As I turn back to the laptop, "If you're not using the other name, can I have it?"

My twitch unsettles it, and the reliever beats its wings for a moment, comes to rest in front of me. "But why would you _want_ that name? It's...not a good name."

"Why not?"

Please let this not be another "I want to be a Bright Lilim" subject. "It means...yearning. Desiring. Do you want a name like that?"

The reliever frowns thoughtfully, or as near as it comes to thought. "But I do desire things. I want to know all sorts of things, and understand what people tell me, and I want to...know."

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

That surprises a laugh out of me. "You can't know everything."

"Why not?"

"No one can know everything. There's too much of it."

"But I can try!"

"If you'd like to, yes. You can always try." A thousand things in the world to try that you'll never succeed at, but who am I to explain that? So this is the sort of creature that forms at the top of Lightning Tether.

"Then I can have the name?"

"You're sure you want it?"

"You're not _using_ it," says the reliever, all earnest appeal and hope. "I would take good care of it."

I could try to speak to it about everything that name means, but it wouldn't understand. If it wishes to interpret the meaning differently than I did... so be it. "If you'd like it, you can have it."

"Thank you!" The reliever kisses me on the nose, a tiny butterfly touch against my face, and then it's out the window, turning spirals in the sky. "I have a name!" it calls, to anyone near enough to hear.

Just the two of us in the room again. I could worry, but it wouldn't help him or me. And I have work to do.

I send out progress reports as I finish tasks, receive new tasks to work on. Hints of VapuTech around the edges of one set of plans I'm asked to analyze, and maybe soon they'll let me examine those things properly, show them all the exploitable flaws and omissions. I wrote up a summary of all my recent projects on my first day there, a list of other projects I'd heard anything significant about. Surely they'll want more information on those things. There's so much to do, always more to do... Why didn't anyone tell me decades ago that Heaven had proper work for people like me?

At the end of the first day, I email Zif, in case she's begun to worry. Her reply hasn't so much as a hint of anxiety to it, though she does mention working out better methods to keep my Heart under surveillance while she's on Earth. Working out an efficient method of keeping a data stream moving between Heaven and Earth must be fascinating... Not my area of expertise.

A day and a half. No change in the slow rotation of the Ofanite in front of me. This is not unusual; I have spent a few minutes between reports researching how angels react to Trauma. With the exception of Malakim, the answer seems to be "much the same as demons." None of the data refers to those who have lingered in Trauma for centuries having their Forces recycled, and I can see Heaven leaving them be for...as long as it takes. One cannot say that any given angel will never recover, because forever is a time we haven't reached. I'll take what comfort I can in that. No matter how long he sleeps here, so long as Heaven remains, it will wait for him.

Two days. The reliever, bright-eyed little Maharang, brings me a cup of coffee, though I didn't ask for anything. It chatters at me for a few minutes, nothing of importance to say, and leaves again when it realizes I'd rather be...not alone, only without more company. I'm not alone here.

The Elohite returns, once. It steps through the archway, and asks, "How long will you wait?"

"Until he wakes up." Forever is a very long time. But there will be work for me forever, so long as I continue to ask for it. If Zif, Jean, anyone thought this a poor use of my time, they would say so.

The Elohite nods. "Good." And then it's off again, back to whatever duties keep an uncertain Elohite in Heaven for so long.

A note from Gariel, not a new task but to say he's pleased with my work. I file it away in the folder where I keep certain private messages. The Seraph who runs that coffee shop letting me know about a new blend he thinks I'd like, a thank you from the Mercurian in the office next to mine for help on a small problem. None of these are anything important, nothing related directly to the work I do, but there's some touch of pleasure in having that folder.

I haven't been meaning to count the hours, but numbers add up easily in my head if I don't force them out. Seventy hours since I arrived here, three days solid since the last gunshots. At the tone, the time is: too fucking long. Not long enough. I see the same thing every time I look up.

But I said I would wait.

Another report sent off, this one with annotations as polite as I could make them about how much energy a prototype built to those specifications would draw. Working for the Word of Lightning doesn't mean one has any excuse to be sloppy about power allocation, and certain items won't be useful in the field so long as one needs to wheel along a generator to use them. A few minutes will pass before I receive something new to work on; it's enough time to go over the statistics and analyses again, all the facts and theories and hypotheses and guesses about the inner workings of Trauma.

The first noise I hear is so small I almost ignore it, a tiny rustle, like stepping on discarded shrink wrap. I would discount it as imagination or a passing reliever if it weren't for the thrum, rising in pitch and volume, a cello running through a scale.

Laptop falling to the floor, I'm on my feet, and... the circle spins. All the dull low flames burn brighter, wheel spinning faster and the hum ever louder in pitch, until it's a blur of motion, sound, heat, rotating faster than my eyes can follow around the Heart. The room grows hotter until I might as well be approaching a forge, and then the ring flips up, a wheel returned to its proper position. Bright flames sink down to cheerful crackling, and the hum disappears. Only an Ofanite spinning about, the way they do.

"Hey," I say. And for all my vocabulary, I don't have any other words.


	12. In Which We Come To An Agreement

Waking up from sleep feels weird, like a part of you has shut down and then climbed back to life; I never bother with sleep if I can help it, have only needed a few times to maintain my Roles over the years. Waking up from Trauma is different. Like finding your way back into familiar territory, and just as you do realizing that you've been wandering lost without knowing it. The room where I keep my Heart is high when it wants to be, which is most of the time, and it has a window for me to look through and see, right like that, I'm home.

I hadn't expected anyone to wait for me. It's been how long since I was here, pulling myself together from another tangle with a demon? The last time, the Boss was still around, and he told me that if I was going to keep doing things like that, I ought to learn how to be better at it. Next thing I know, everything I pick up is a brilliant weapon in my hands. I've always appreciated that trick, and it's kept my vessel in one piece (aside from that incident with the Shedite and the chainsaw, and some friends from Flowers patched me up before I was gone) ever since. Until now. When I was shot by Kelly, and that's more than fair for a number of reasons and probably part of some great tactical plan, but came as a surprise at the time.

"Hey," says Mannie, when I'm righting myself into the proper position for a Wheel, which is ready to roll. He might've had something more to say, but I'm too busy whirling around him, pulling coils out of myself to wrap tight.

"You're okay. I was so _worried_." Marvelous terrible moments to see him again, and then see the demons trying to hurt him. Succeeding in hurting him. But he's here, we won, we _won_ , and I don't know what might have been lost in doing it, but he's here in _Heaven_ where he ought to be, and that's what matters the most in this instant.

"That was supposed to be my line," he says, and if his expression is calm his voice isn't. He needs a hug, I think, and in this form I can spiral in to give him one from head to toe.

"Oh, look at you." I roll back to get a proper look, now that there's nothing to distract me. "You're so _you_."

"So me?" Even his face is sliding into bemused, now, like he doesn't know how to react. Has he never watched anyone come out of Trauma before? I'd think at his age he'd have seen it a dozen times.

"Yeah. You look exactly like you're supposed to." He's not going for the robes many angels like to wear in Heaven, but pretty much the same thing he was wearing when we traveled together, though his jacket doesn't look quite as scruffy. I'd have a hard time picturing him in robes anyway, doesn't seem his style. All around him this crackling aura, nearly invisible, but I can feel it when I'm this close. So that's what a Bright Lilim of Lightning turns out to be. I know I'm going to feel silly for asking it, but I have to. "Can I see the wings?"

He spreads his wings, and they're jagged electric blue lines. Perfect. I need to learn to paint, if only so that I can show those off to everyone else. "Beautiful."

"They're still...strange." He folds them back in, as if he's afraid he'll bump something in this room if he leaves them out. It doesn't work that way around here, but he hasn't had much chance to get used to it.

I roll back and forth a bit, getting accustomed to this shape again. Once instinctive reactions wear off, I have to remember how it all works. "When I got my first vessel, it was so weird to suddenly have all these different _pieces_ like I didn't know what to do with them, hands and elbows and knees and toes, but I really got to liking feet. Not having feet is weird-making all over again." You can't do ballet without the proper body parts, but in this shape I can spin perfectly without ever losing sight of what I'm looking at. "But it's good to be back home. I haven't been here in half past forever."

Mannie picks up a laptop from the ground, and a notebook; he must have been waiting here for long enough to bring something to do, though that's not very long when it comes to him. And people say _I_ get fidgety when I'm bored. Can't turn around without him making up another flowchart or diagram, so long as he hasn't gone all sulking. I hope to never catch him in a serious sulk again. "Where would you like to go?"

"You don't need to get back to work, or anything?" I pick up my Heart. It's warm when I hold it, lets me know that it's only and always mine. I have a better idea for where to leave it than here.

"I, ah, already scheduled time off for when you woke up again. My supervisor said it was entirely acceptable."

I can't help laughing at that, and another twist around him as we go down the stairs together. I'd go out the window if I were alone, but I want to stay near him, and if he's not comfortable with his wings yet I'm not about to press. I don't know how demons get around down in Hell. Do they fly, or walk, or are they carried about by damned souls? I'd rather not know. All sorts of things I don't want to know that I keep finding out of late, but I'm not about to start asking after such things. "You are _ever_ yourself. I thought you'd fit in with Lightning just fine, though I did wonder if you'd figure it out so fast. So how's work?"

"It's perfect."

"Perfect?" I'd expected at least a few complaints. He's never yet said anything _good_ to me about anyone he worked with before, and while I'd like to think Heaven is ahead of Hell, it's not like we have all the geniuses. (Though we're getting more, at this rate.)

"Well." He waves a hand in the air. "There are people who aren't as cooperative as I'd like, or slow to give information. I don't have access yet to all the data I'd like. And the younger Sparkies don't seem to understand that making an item draw more power isn't always a _good_ thing. But." He keeps one hand on the railing as we go down the stairs, his fingers running along the lovely bits of design that the master craftsman of this piece did. Every step was made by a different reliever, and when we pass the one I made myself, it hits me harder before, I'm really home. Back in my Boss's house. "Every piece of equipment I'm using is guaranteed to not explode unless I want it to. My assignments are reasonable, if sometimes more simplistic than I'd like. I'm reasonably certain my supervisor is not attempting to steal credit for what I do. So. Perfect, yes. Or as near as I expect to ever find."

The hallway at the bottom of the stairs is empty. So's the next one, and while Mannie tells me about his latest project (or what bits of it haven't been marked as confidential, not that I can understand half of it anyway), we're on to another hallway and there's...one blessed soul, in a room to the side, painting a trees along a canvas that takes up half the wall of the room. But no one else.

"Kai?" Mannie's stopped to look at me. "Are you okay?"

You can't lie in Heaven, and I'm not the sort to spend much time tiptoeing around things to avoid saying them. "The last time I was here... there were _people_ here, Mannie. People everywhere. Angels and relievers and souls and all _sorts_ of people. Every one of these rooms would have someone working inside, a thousand different pieces in progress. And there was music..." Pottery wheels stand still, the forges are cold, all the paintbrushes lie neatly in rows. "I mean, I _knew_ , but I hadn't...seen. I hadn't seen it like this."

I've known the Boss has been off working on his big project since shortly after he left. The first triad to show up gave me some basic details once they found out I hadn't heard, and then other Creationers, friends who were trying to sympathize or wanted to hear if I knew anything more, and...the Boss wasn't calling, wasn't that enough to tell me what had changed? So many angels in service to someone else, off working for Fire or Wind or Flowers or Destiny or some other Superior. Someone who wasn't the Boss. I knew all of this, but I hadn't...seen it like this. Not until now.

"He'll be back," says Mannie, but he's saying it because it's what I said. This isn't so bad as a Balseraph's lies, because it's only a pause. Intermission between the acts. Eventually the curtain will rise, and the play will go on. But this hurts all the more because it's true. He's really not here. I'm back home and he's not _here_.

"Yeah," I say. "He'll be back." I don't know when, but...eventually. When he's finished with what he's doing that's taking up all his time. Or maybe he won't come back here, maybe he'll do something unexpected; that would be like him too. But if so, he'll let us all know. He'll call me and let me know. "It's just in the meantime..."

We move forward without talking until we're at one of the sets of doors leading outside, great wooden doors carved into the shape of a tree with dark glass set between the branches. "There was an Elohite who was there when I first found your Heart," Mannie says, I think searching for an easier topic of conversation. "It says you knew it before it was, ah, Elohite."

"Seth stopped by? That was sweet of it." And an admission of sorts, that it cares. I don't know that anyone could stay Habbalite after being talked to by Flowerchildren for two months straight, but that one has some issues to resolve. I wanted to help, but with Seth up in Heaven and me doing Earth duty, and then the Seneschal told me when I asked after it that I'd do more harm than good to pursue the matter... I can't help everyone I want to. But if I send a note thanking it for attempting to assist me in adjusting to recent changes, rather than for caring enough to show up, that'll be something. "Nice to know that it's not holding grudges." At Mannie's look, "Well, back as a Habbalite he _did_ try to blow up a Tether of Flowers. Jack and I jumped on him, the Seraph ran up and started lecturing him, and then I think he ended up locked in a gardening shed for three weeks being talked at before he calmed down enough to have a reasonable conversation. I only saw him a few times after that, before he went to speak with Novalis." 

I push on outside, to where I can find more people. Some place less empty. No corner of Heaven so beautiful as this should be so empty.

The light outside these doors has a quality never found on Earth, and all the stones in the path beneath me feel the way stones ought to be. They're almost like the stones in the path near the community center, the one they set down because everyone cut across the lawn so often the grass there had worn away. A little care with adjusting my vessel to fit the passage of time, retiring gracefully and returning with the Role of some grandchild, I danced in that place for over half a century. "I can't get back there, Mannie. I don't have a vessel, my Role has been shredded, I can't... He told me to keep up the good work. I was trying, and now I _can't_. The first thing he asked me to do in decades and I can't _do_ it."

"I'm sorry I didn't find you sooner." He means it. Like it's his fault, as if he ought to be _blamed_. I swirl around him in a blaze.

"Don't you dare apologize. You came when you could. And why did you come? Why didn't you tell someone else, send anyone else at all? They could have hurt you." That moment seeing him as what he was always meant to be, finally an angel of the Lord, and knowing at the same time that they could drag him back down to Hell, rip him apart for being there. "You're not supposed to throw yourself against demons. That's _my_ job. You idiot." All of myself one endless loop around him, as if I could hold him safe here against all the forces of the darkness. He was in danger and I couldn't do anything at all.

"I couldn't leave you there."

"You could have sent someone else. It was a _trap_." I don't know how I'll ever find a way back to the job the Boss set for me, but so long as I'm here, I can make sure he's safe.

"I knew that." He smiles at me, one of his sad smiles that he only uses for special occasions. "Silly little angel. After all you did for me, do you think I could leave you there? I'm arrogant enough to think you'd be safer if I helped find you."

"It's not like you owed me--"

"I did, though. And even if I didn't... I would have been there."

"It was _dangerous_."

"And so am I, Kai." He takes a step back, out of my flames. "And now you're getting upset, and we all know what that leads to."

"What?"

"A moping Ofanite. Which we wouldn't want. So. I imagine you can find my office, if you try. I'll race you there."

He _has_ learned how to use his wings.

But I'm faster.

I could take the quickest route there, but I don't think that's what he has in mind, and so I chase him through a tour of Heaven. Away from the Halls of Creation for the day, and over the Bazaar, skimming through the tops of the trees where the Windies play, just past the edge of Jordi's Savannah, low through the Glade where I spot a few Servitors of Flowers that I'll have to speak to later, but no time now! When Mannie falls out of sight I spiral until he's just ahead of me again, and then it's off ahead to show him how fast I can spin.

Sweeping through the Halls of Progress, I'm a bit out of place here but no one seems surprised to have an Ofanite rolling through. His office is precisely where I know it is, no name on the door yet, and he hasn't bothered to decorate. Coffee-stained papers on the desk, all the flow-charts I recognize from whenever he'd stick one under my nose while I was trying to drive, and maybe that's his way of personalizing his office. He ought to have wind chimes, though, or a painting, or a coffee mug with something cute drawn on the side. I could take up pottery and make him one, with a little practice. Okay, considering how my coffee-making is coming, with a _lot_ of practice, but I have...time. All sorts of time to spin through.

Mannie saunters into the office. "You won."

"You weren't even _trying_ , at the end."

"Can you blame me? I know when I'm outmatched." He sits down in the office chair and spins it around, shoves the laptop he's been carrying aside into one corner, puts his notebook down in the center of the desk. One demon told me it was afraid of redemption because it heard that the process changed you, tore you up and made you into something _different_ , but it doesn't. It makes you more of who you are, and who you can be. This is the same Mannie I met in the back seat of Jack and Kelly's car, only brighter. "I could show you around, though they won't let me through any of the really interesting doors yet."

"No, I'm happy here." I poke around the office and find that from an angle I hadn't hit before, I can see an origami crane sitting on the back corner of his desk, behind a stack of books. He makes this place his, in his own way. "Hey! That reminds me. I have something to give you."

"Oh?" He looks wary, and I wonder if anyone told him about the incident with the flan. But I'm staying away from anything custardy until I get better at cooking. 

"Here. You can keep it with you. Like... in a desk drawer, or something, wherever is handy. Then whenever you're not sure where I am, you can check right there, and make sure I'm okay. Without needing to show up and get endangered. Understood?"

He stares at me. "You can't give me your Heart."

"Why not? The Boss isn't here to look after his Cathedral right now, so I might as well give it to a friend. I know you'll keep an eye out for me. And after all this, I think anyone who's looking for me is going to come asking you first anyway. It's handy that way." So maybe I'm babbling a little bit and not quite getting at the main point of why I'm doing this, but... he has my Heart in his hands, now. He can either keep it or give it back, his decision.

"You trust me more than I deserve," he says, and he finds an empty drawer to tuck my Heart into. There beneath his notebooks and files and pencils and on top of it all a little origami crane. It couldn't be in a better place.

"If I knew how everything would turn out, it wouldn't be trust. That's what it's about. Not knowing and going with it. I'm better with the doing than the knowing anyway." I've learned how to deal with these sudden flashes down on Earth. Take a deep breath, look away, change the subject, remember that something's still over a burner in the kitchen. Here I don't know what to do anymore, and I can feel my flames shifting across me, no way to hide that, because all I know how to do is the doing of things, and up here it's...not so useful. I don't know what to _do_ here. All I do is dance, and hit demons with things, and sometimes play the piccolo, or play the bagpipes badly. I can't think what I'll do here. "I don't know what to do next, Mannie."

"We'll figure something out," he says. And it's a thousand times complicated, no Role or vessel or Superior here, I don't even have clear instructions to work on, but...he's smart. He'll know what to do.

"Yeah," I say. "We'll figure something out."


End file.
